Submitted by: Phoenix Digital (https://phoenixdigital.agency) Post published: 1st July, 2019

Many successful years of Phoenix Digital building world-class, e-commerce sites means we have a great deal of our own Intellectual Property and experience to share. We recently produced an overview of the ‘5 trends for e-commerce in 2019’ as the sector evolves with changing online consumer expectations.

In this article, we specifically focus on the ‘5 game-changing e-commerce technology trends in 2019’ and the benefits they bring to the consumer.

Superb mobile e-commerce experiences

The importance of mobile optimisation for e-commerce businesses is well understood by all involved.

However, technology can and does still play a huge role in the top e-commerce sites, presenting better user experiences, navigation, engagement techniques and thus, competitive advantages over similar sites.

E-commerce global trends indicate that mobile devices will become the central piece of technology used to discover, research, and purchase goods and services in the next few years.

And the stats are again black and white when it comes to consumers leaving a non- or poorly- mobile optimised site in their droves, due to an immediate perceived, poor user experience.

The pursuit of identifying the most relevant, cutting-edge technology to deliver the best mobile experience for the shopper, is only set to intensify.

Specialist website and e-commerce site developers, such as Phoenix Digital, currently hold the key for those organisations seeking that extra 1%.

But there’s more to it than just optimising an e-commerce site for mobile users.

Mobile consumer security

On Monday 3rd June 2019, still very much monitoring and reflecting changing consumer behaviours, Apple announced ‘Sign in with Apple’.

Apple are providing hundreds of millions of potential mobile shoppers around the world, with the ability to ‘sign into’ Apps and Websites through this new feature.

Clearly e-commerce developers need to have added the functionality into their own sites (as well as considering other technological security advances coming to the fore), in order for their security-conscious customers to be able to do so.

The mobile e-commerce App

Additionally, as mobile consumers increase at pace, inevitably e-commerce developers will see more and more requirements from clients, to follow the Amazon model and deliver an even more immersive environment for their mobile shoppers – an App.

Because Apps are more immersive, users tend to spend more time browsing. That means more opportunities for marketing, sales, and conversions.

Another key element of this process is working with an experienced e-commerce developer, who has the knowledge and insights to be able to apply the appropriate mix of both technology and online journey planning, so that a new App being introduced, is perceived as a value-adding addition to the user experience, and not a confusing distraction.

Product customisation and recommendations

Undoubtedly, product customisation will continue to grow as one of the leading e-commerce technology trends. There’s so much in it for today’s time-limited online shopper.

That’s because, when delivered correctly, it’s easy for consumers to use, eliminates the hassles of shopping, and means fulfilling decisions can be undertaken quickly. E-commerce sites built on the most nimble, dynamic and data rich platforms are those leading the way.

The technology needed to drive product customisation and relevant recommendations, needs to be able to deliver 95% of the strategy itself… hence it being delivered through Automation.

Technically, every time a shopper uses a leading e-commerce site, data gathered should be automatically amalgamated with previous behaviours, to form an increasingly sharp insight into that person’s anticipated future commerce needs.

As ground-breaking as Amazon have been in this area, any semi-regular customers of theirs will know even they can (and will of course) make improvements to their technology, which drives this automated process.

On that basis, this technological development trend should continue at pace, for all organisations seeking competitive advantages.

Product visualisation

Recent technological advances in 3D, augmented reality, and virtual reality has managed to change the way products are visualised on many leading e-commerce sites, including some of the those we have developed at Phoenix Digital; for example, Argos.

However, none of those technologies alone bridge the gap for an increasing number of consumers who want to be able to ‘picture’ a particular item ‘in situ’.

For that, the technology has to be bolstered with Augmented Reality.

Many e-commerce businesses are working with developers nowadays to explore the optimal approach so that users can superimpose digital images on top of a user’s view of the real world through their mobile device, before they buy.

For us at Phoenix Digital, this is a key technological advancement that we see as clear competitive advantage territory, for many of our clients going forward.