The future of online shopping or ecommerce seems to be more than just bright. In fact, it is simply brilliant! With stats showing that an average shopper spends USD 1800 a year shopping online, service providers have the necessary ground to fight for the big buck!

So, what does the future of ecommerce hold for 2017?

Conversational Commerce

As surprising as it may sound, the future of e-commerce is seemingly going to be determined by non other than ecommerce bots. Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Google Allo have all incorporated special chatbots into their products to help users with customer issues and, increasingly, shopping. As consumers get more and more familiar with AI bots, providers incorporate more and more of them into the business.

To understand the extent to which brands are exposed to this new trend, it’s enough to note that there are more than 11000 chatbots made available by Facebook as of today. Known brands are already adopting the new trend: one example is clothing retailer Spring, which has implemented a personal shopping service called Spring Bot.

It is expected that more brands will jump into this whirlpool in 2017, changing the face of ecommerce with no point of return.

Mobile payment and loyalty apps

Mobile payments are on the rise as they have never been before. The reason behind this is that smartphone users get more and more accustomed to contactless payments.

Virtual wallets remove the need for lengthy authentications enabling users to be that one tap away from any purchase. While the use of separate apps with their payment systems is predicted to decline, contactless payment is sure to make headlines as a winning pioneer of 2017.

An added benefit of contactless payment is the reduced risk of fraud. You just transfer the necessary amount of money into your virtual account and make a payment. Easy as pie!

At the same time, as people strive towards ease and convenience even more, there will be increased interest in finding good merchant account providers for keeping all bank accounts and methods of payment on track and streamlined for better and easier access.

Personalized sales and striving for convenience

As online sales become more and more common, so do the cookies that collect data about every user’s search history and online performance. This info is later used for offering you targeted content marketing. You may see ads matching your online performance which are set to fuel your interest. In a way, it’s no longer you looking for items to buy, but rather the items looking for you!

Overall, we are heading to the sales and shopping without boundaries both online and offline. The recent introduction of Amazon’s checkout-free go-grocery shop has revolutionized shopping offline, and we believe there’s a lot of change ahead, for all aspects of merchandise!

Soon enough, the idea of grocery shopping and waiting in the line can become remote, together with the risk of providing your credit card details to fraudsters. 2017’s all set in, so let’s wait and see!

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