eCommerce Trends in 2022

In taking a pause to see where your business is going in the Post-pandemic era, and now, the Ukraine war with Russia to top off your global events. The world is now challenged with logistics disruptions, cancel culture on everything Russian, Energy crisis, massive inflation, the western world is gravely concerned. However, just like in the pandemic where eCommerce came to the rescue while lockdowns and social distancing mandates were imposed - eCommerce might be the solution once more.

The current eCommerce market

A massive surge from the brick and mortar stores into the online store space took place in 2020 and 2021. Marketing tools had to be re-learned, search engine optimization and social media were used to enhance the customer experience and drive online shopping in lieu of physical store visits. Given this, a lot of merchants are in a good place to drive this effort once more given the economic realities taking place in Europe and the USA.

The current climate

With the Russian sanctions on the 3rd largest Oil and Gas exporter and the western dependencies on its exports - we are now having to bring a few realities to bear on our electric grids, transportation, and logistics. These massive hikes in costs are taking what was a bad situation pre-war with high fuel prices, strained shortages in energy generation, and high-level inflation. Today's risk is an economic slowdown due to market confidence uncertainty, and consumer spending being curtailed as they struggle to manage their finances on the basics. Aside from panic buying, many goods may be passed over as luxury items where families are going to focus on struggling with massive increases in their electric/gas bills, fuel at Gas stations, and a huge rise in inflation with transportation costs rising sharply.

eCommerce: the lowest cost of acquisition

With these inflationary times, your conversion rate is about to get better. This will also improve your growth rate as well. In order to avoid transportation costs by adding fuel to your car, ordering online will leverage the market's transportation costs, and in some instances, electric vehicle deliveries are more cost-effective than gasoline/diesel vehicles. Additionally, competitive pricing done online using a search engine is more effective in finding the lowest price for the goods you need. Customer interactions online have been proven over the pandemic - giving folks a good customer experience. Therefore, your lowest cost of acquisition is going online and doing google searches until you find the right item, for the right price.

Digital marketing and SEO

While it was a proven fact that everyone flocked to the net for their goods during the pandemic, because of this migration, competition has increased in that space. While before stores could be more differentiated in the customer expectations of service by a local store, vs. an online purchase, now a lot of merchants are online offering the same great customer experience using similar tools. This puts additional pressure on all the online stores to sharpen their digital marketing and SEO for greater persuasion outside of their normal Ad campaigns. The marketing team's focus has to go beyond the standard 4P's and go the extra mile for customer loyalty, customer experience strategies, and being customer-centric using social media to gain market share.

Improving your conversion rate

Customer satisfaction is only part of the scaling of your conversion rate, and while your marketing campaigns may be effective, the website's call to action funnels may need upgrading. This requires thought leadership, reviewing your categories and how they are being marketed, looking through Google Search Console's traffic analysis, and Google Analytic's user navigations to see how the conversion tracking is taking place. Search queries being keyword centric, reviewing your competition's keywords, landing pages, and SEO will give you an edge. Adopting competitive best practices in conversion and doing one better will win the day. To stay price competitive you have to be in the business growth category - Price is king, as long as the margins hold out, and your operating costs are managed. Not easy in today's economic environment.

Conclusion

If you are looking to see what needs to be done to overcome this next crisis, look no further than what successes you have had in the past 2 years. However, with greater competition, looking into efficiencies in both marketing and your store's conversion rates will give you insight into engaging improvement activities. With your proposition to deliver cost-effective and timely delivered goods, families will gravitate to acquiring their goods online to save money through transportation costs. There is one key element that online stores have over brick-and-mortar stores - its inventory availability. The frustration of finding an empty shelf after using fuel to get there is going to be a notable issue and will be avoided with greater effort. If you need to get some advice and review your digital marketing, online store funnel, and using the best practices for your eCommerce store - give us a shout at wish@thegenielab.com