Trends to follow for an E-commerce website in 2018

Online sales are booming rapidly in the history of digital shopping. Sales (especially from the mobile devices) are at the highest rate of growth that is 59% per year. E-commerce still has a lot of potential to grow as online retail sales are enhancing with every passing day. The major impact is due to latest mobile trends that provide shoppers with enhanced accessibility, suppleness, and safety while shopping.

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As we are about to enter 2018 many more merchants are diverging towards Omni-channel presence to expand their reach to online buyers. The significance of rapid shipping, social engagement and a lack of hidden fees is still an obstacle for high-end performance online retailers.

What will define digital merchants after the New Year? Let’s take a look at thepresent trends that will endure to convert the ecommerce setting in 2018.

You may like also: Tips for a Better Ecommerce Website

A deluge of Mobile Shoppers

As with time smartphones have managed to acquire an integral position in our daily lives, it has simultaneously improved the ratio of online buyers. This rise has proved to be immensely dynamic as well. The current account for mobile devices is 19% of total E-commerce sales only in US and this percentage is highly anticipated to rise up to 27% by the end of 2018.

This up surge of mobile shopping has provided the online merchants with huge challenges. However, traditional desktops still manage to outdo mobile devices as far as conversion rates are concerned. E-commerce brands significantly need all the assistance to reach near to get the sales with mobile users.

The Flourishing B2B Ecommerce

Though ecommerce is frequently debated as the B2C scope, it is consuming the steady progress within the B2B space. Though B2B E-commerce is prospected to exceed $ 1 trillion in entire sales by the year 2020, there is no doubt that B2B still is a difficult for many brands. Rationalizing of the purchasing process between businesses especially bulk sales, is still a challenge for retailers. Nevertheless, the minute details of pricing schemes and quoting customers have been sorted out.

Another tool CPQ Configure Price Quote platform FPX assists the B2B buyers converting the whole process of the proposal request into self-service attempt. This tool permits the customers to answer a sequence of queries that then recorded into an algorithm to generate a modified, prompt proposal, so they can place orders on the spot, instead of waiting for the sales representatives to get back to the buyer’s.

Secure E-Commerce Website with SSL

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, it is a technology used to secure website and encrypt information transmitted between web browser and web server. Just you need to install trusted SSL certificate on your web server to enable HTTPS protocol on your website, it makes online transactions properly encrypted using 256-bit encryption. SSL certificate used to verify sender or receiver identities and other confidential data. So, E-Commerce website to install EV SSL Certificate obtained from a trusted CA (Certificate Authority) such as Comodo, GeoTrust, Thawte, GlobalSign or Symantec to ensure customer trust and security, which also helps to earn brand name. Extended Validation SSL can issued after full business validation method, and it takes up to 7 days for issuance by Certificate Authority.

Dominant Storefront Apps

There is a storm of mobile storefront apps to reach the huge number of buyers that too on the go to cater to the new challenges of appealing mobile buyers. Simultaneously, the need of Omni-channel presence for the merchants increases. The mobile users spend 86% of their time on the apps as compared to websites, possibly branded smartphone shopping apps are crucial to convert those once-fickle customers.

It is quite obvious that if a customer goes through all the hassle of downloading the app he will be interested in the purchasing as well. App commerce platform is definitely the newest and most effective trend.A recent study showed that the storefront apps outdid mobile website conversions with 40% supporting longer browsing sessions even than the desktop web browsing and it is predicted to derive more frequent revisits than the latter two. Storefront apps are the game changers in the E-commerce industry as they include personalization, notifications and geolocation integrated brick and rock solid shopping recommendations.

Design trends

The year 2018, expects E-commerce websites to employ the CSS Grid Layout, integrate mobile-friendly full-screen modal windows, embrace a lot more video content, and include micro interactions and directed selling.

CSS Grid Layout

CSS grid layout provide designers considerably more expertise how a web page is carried and aids to make much better utilization of space across multiple devices and screen sizes. The CSS Grid Layout enables the user interfaces relatively easy in comparison to other methods.It is a two-dimensional layout model and an integral part of the CSS standard from the World Wide Web Consortium.

E-commerce website designers and theme makers have to include CSS Grid Layout in 2018, specifically on product category pages or on search results pages.

As some early versions of web browsers do not entirely support CSS Grid this can turn out to be a probable barrier. However, the latest versions of all leading browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Edge completely support it.

Full-screen modals

A modal, modal box, or modal window is an element, usually controlled with a script that is overlaid on top of other elements or content to permit user interaction, in a web design. The use of full-screen modals will be the new trend in the upcoming year. It covers almost every corner of the screen with the content on the page when displayed on desktop or laptop computers, and simultaneously on a mobile device.

Video content

Video content is the most effective medium for conveying the message conveniently even if it is complex information. E-commerce website utilize video content to inform the customers about their product in detail and the audience number is huge. It shouldn’t be a surprise if the production and publishing of video content increases immensely.

Micro-interactions

Facebook added the “Like” button to its posts that started as a way to rate social media contributions, which has now turned into one of the most common website and application trends.
Micro-interactions can prove to be as best trick for online buyers due to its capability to create habits or, and reward users for completing specific tasks, such as adding a product to the shopping cart, reviewing a product, or subscribing to an email newsletter.

Guided selling

Guided selling is to ask specific questions from customers about their preferences like size material etc and then to provide them with their required product. Many E-commerce websites hire specialist to guide the customer throughout the selling process.