eCommerce Trends for 2019: CertiPro’s Top Predictions

CertiPro’s Predictions on eCommerce Trends for 2019

When it comes to staying up with the trends, businesses need information from those who only focus on the eCommerce aspects of business. Certipro is here to help any business that hosts an online platform for its customers. Here are six of the top trends that are bound to dominate eCommerce in 2019.

1.     Chatbots Will Only Be Part Of Customer Interaction

Chatbots are on nearly every site now, but customers expect much more than a simple yes or no answer. Customers want a chatbot that can answer complex questions and reference the customer’s past information. Businesses that haven’t started putting an enterprise management software into effect yet need to consider it now. Sage software has created a number of solutions that help with all aspects of the business. Sage has one of the best ERMs on the market that fit small, medium and large-sized companies. Sage Enterprise Management and Sage 500 ERP can help your business connect more directly with your customers. Even if you can’t put your chatbots to work on that level, it can help your customer service reps provide better service.

2.     Improved Analytics Platforms

As many people expect, technology is continuing to advance at unbelievable rates. The good thing is that analytics is providing business owners and managers with exceptional data. In 2019 you can expect analytics platforms to improve. Expect your platforms to transcend simple terms of traffic or sales funnel metrics. Instead, you can expect your business software to help establish the interdependence between your departments digitally. Software solutions such as Sage 100cloud is helping businesses to understand their supply chain. With easy reporting, you can extract data and see the tangible information for effective decision making.

1.     B2B eCommerce Growth

Although many people are cutting out the middlemen, more businesses are relying on other companies for their success. Many people in the B2B sector love the option of eCommerce, and it’s working out well for everyone. Companies are choosing to eliminate account managers in place of allowing a customer to manage their account. With customizable or personalized customer portals, a B2B company can streamline customer orders, shipping, and even inventory control internally. Work with software solutions such as pairing, Sage Magento Integration, with Sage 100 or Sage 300 to take let your customers take full advantage of managing their account and minimize the time you spend on inventory. Working with some of the most prominent names in eCommerce, Magento is leading the way for eCommerce integration. It doesn’t matter if you’re helping other entrepreneurs, putting together gourmet snack boxes, or delivering the necessities of life like The Dollar Shave Club. Subscription boxes have proven that the business model works. Customers are happy to stick with companies long term when they know that they’ll receive a quality product, on-time. Subscription boxes are thriving in the eCommerce sector, and this is going to continue to grow through 2019. Expect to see even more boxes shipped straight from a garage facility, packaged with the hope of an up-and-coming entrepreneur, and straight to your door.

1.     Personalization Grows Even More Important

With each advancement in technology, we see more importance on personalization. Customers want to see marketing campaigns targeted at them individually. It’s nearly impossible to get anyone to open an email without putting their name in their email subject line. What does this mean for eCommerce? In 2019 you should expect personalization to impact more than just your marketing department. If you have customers that don’t receive notice that a product is unavailable or out of stock until they’ve already placed their order, you just lost a customer. Customers want to see the products they order regularly. They want notices when any of their regular orders is out of stock, and they want immediate updates on their orders. It’s imperative that you build interdependency and synergy between your production, sales, marketing, and customer service departments. Although software can help you fill in the gaps in many of these situations, it is critical that your company understand the changes that personalization is bringing. To help build more personalization into your eCommerce site, try these tips:

• Use collected cookies to create personalized home pages
• Show recently viewed items
• Take customers back to the last page they were visited
• Hide items that are not geographically relevant
• Opt for personalized marketing campaigns

2.     Customers Expect Portals That Cater to Them

Companies are using software that helps them navigate through day-to-day business with ease which should do the same for their customers. Many customers have caught on that if a company knows their ordering history, shipping address, and billing information they’ll get frustrated when they have to input that information more than once. Customers want to see all the history that they’ve had with the company, and customer enterprise management is becoming the solution for this expectation. Then there’s the struggle of meeting “and” instead of “or” in customer care. It’s simply impossible to create a completely custom portal for everyone. But you can put the control in their hands. To keep up with this trend, focus on the things you can control. Work on a regular schedule with product releases and give various settings to your users. Customize your environment and use systems that work well together. Ideally, your customers won’t be the only one to benefit from these changes. With customers taking more control over all aspects of business, from their interactions with customer service reps to managing the tracking on their orders you should be able to increase productivity and become more agile.

Keep Up with The Trends Impacting Your Business

Software solutions are the way to keep your businesses up with the latest trends. Certipro connects businesses with the software that fits their needs in all things eCommerce. A full-service partner for business technology, you can count on Certipro for consulting, ERPs, eCommerce management and even web development. From Sage support to ERP training, check out CertiPro’s services to start boosting your business.