5 Online Marketplace Trends to Know about in 2021 When Starting Your Online Business

Tremendous growth has been recorded in the field of the digital marketplace industry. Customers’ buying behavior has changed a lot and there is a great response for online marketplace platforms. Around 48.8% growth is seen on online shopping after 2020. Users started using their smartphones to pay online and around 40.6% of online payments are done through mobile apps. Analyzing the market trends is the crucial need of the hour.

Every entrepreneur should know what exactly the current trend is and should know how to sell their products by utilizing the latest trends that will attract the audience easily. Only then it is possible to survive in this competitive online industry. Now let us get into detail about the marketplace trends and how to be benefited by implementing them.

Trend 1. The dominance of virtual experiences

Our current pandemic situation doesn’t allow buyers to visit the shop and buy products they want. This is a great opportunity for every ecommerce store to grab the attention of their target audience and provide them a better virtual shopping experience through innovative strategies..

 How to benefit from the dominance of virtual experience

•  Add more information about goods – giving more information about the product will let the buyer feel the product virtually. You can add product images along with their detailed descriptions. You can have images of products taken from multiple angles. This will give a clear understanding of the product and you can expect better conversion by doing so.

• Invest in unboxing videos – Video contents have a greater response compared to text or image content. 49% of the audience show special interest in watching videos related to products as they find it much easier to understand. Unboxing videos are trending these days as you can present your product in a different way and can let buyers understand how their products will be and how to operate them. So always try to provide unboxing videos for all your products for better conversion.

• Collaborate with influencers to showcase goods – buyers always have the habit of checking what celebrities buy and what they recommend. This craze has increased in recent days mainly because of social media platforms where things go viral easily. Better find a well-known blogger who has more followers in his social media account and work with him and make him showcase your products. This will boost your sales and can maximize your ROI easily.

Trend 2. Emphasis on the first purchase

Recent survey has reported that around 65% of sales that happen in any ecommerce store are mainly from their existing customers who keep buying products again and again from the same platform. This is possible when your customers are satisfied with your product and service.

So it is very important to impress your audience and make them buy your products once. This first purchase will let ways for further shopping with your marketplace platform.

 What you can do to encourage first purchases

• Make registration optional – 35% of visitors just abandon the marketplace as they are not interested in registering with the platform. They are not ready to share their personal information that is to be shared at the time of registration. To avoid this happening in your platform, you can keep registration as optional and let them buy products by being guests. This will let you get better sales.

• Provide a seamless UX, not just a pretty UI – It is easy to attract an audience to your platform by having an eye-catching UI but to make them stay in your platform and go through your products you need to provide better UX. Make sure your platform has user-friendly navigation that will help them to find products easily. Provide them an incomparable user experience that will make them stay in your platform for a long time.

• Ensure a consistent shopping experience from all touchpoints –   we should understand the fact that not all visitors visit your platform through their PC or laptop. Most of them use their mobile apps to visit your site. So better be prepared to get an audience from all sources. For this you need to provide device compatible applications that can be easily accessed through mobile phones, PC, Tablets and any other smart devices.

Trend 3. The social commerce boom

The most appreciable and highly responsive trend is social commerce. Selling products through social media channels is termed as social commerce. 90% of online buyers are active in their social media accounts. So we cannot ignore social media in promoting our online business and getting visitors to your ecommerce marketplace platform.

75% of people will share products that they plan to buy in their social media page and will get their friends’ reviews and they will decide to buy. So more focus is needed to promote business in social media channels.

How to take advantage of the social commerce boom

• Boost brand awareness – boosting your brand awareness is the main benefit that can be availed through social media channels. All you need is to keep posting banners regarding your brand and products and let your friends and others in social groups easily find your content. This will get you higher reach and will make your brand visible to all.

• Build community – building community in social media pages will get you higher customer engagements. You can have a friendly chat with your audience. Through community you can discuss several topics and get various ideas and feedback. This will help you to enhance your product quality as you get various reviews about your product.

• Encourage sales – create demand in buyers’ minds so that you can get sales easily. This is possible by using social media channels. You can let your audience know about your latest offers and special discounts through exclusive banners that will easily gain greater response and will directly get you more sales.

Trend 4. Favorable Delivery Options

There is a huge competition in running an ecommerce store. Users get more options in selecting their ecommerce store. The foremost thing they prefer to have is a prompt delivery. Around 55% of buyers stop returning to the ecommerce store they made their first purchase because of poor delivery. So it is very important to have a keen focus on the delivery system in your online store.

• How to improve delivery servicesGive more delivery options – buyers need to have multiple delivery options that will make them feel more convenient in ordering products from your online store. Make sure your eCommerce platform supports more delivery options and allows your customers to be benefited.

• Offer free delivery  – 37% of buyers abandon their cart because of the shipping charges charged by the platform. They find it costly and they just come out of the site and will search for some other site. To grab the attention of buyers you can initially provide a free delivery service or can set criteria like products purchased above a certain value can be eligible for free delivery. Likewise, you can get more customers to your platform.

• Calculate delivery at checkout – allow your customers to know how much they need to pay in their checkout page itself. This will make them decide on buying the product easily. Everything needs to be transparent for buyers only then you can gain credibility.

• Make returns easy–  returns happen often when you purchase things online. But returning a product and getting a replacement or a refund is really a tiresome job. Give an easy replacement system that will facilitate buyers. But at the same time there is an increase in returns that will kill the platform’s productive time. So better do all necessary steps that will reduce the returns.

Trend 5. The importance of a loyal community

When you have loyal customers they will act as ambassadors for your brand and they will get you new customers. Focus more on customer delight that will obviously increase loyal customers to your platform.

 What you can do to build a loyal community

• Provide a human touch – online shopping has a major drawback that customers cannot touch and feel the product. So it is very important to provide a better shopping experience through shopping assistants who can guide users to know more about the product and will let them understand the product well.

• Take a personal approach – by getting buyers’ personal information you can send them personalized messages that will make them feel better about your marketplace platform. This is one form of building a loyal community.

• Promote brand values – recognized brands will get more sales. So you need to promote your brand values among your audience. Provide eco-friendliness and create additional bonding with your buyers. You can have badges for your products by getting ratings from buyers and sellers that will be an added value for your brand.

• Create useful content – content are the main source to attract visitors to your platform. Through attractive content you can easily deliver your thoughts, service and products to your customers. By providing enough description about the product customers will understand them easily. This will obviously increase the conversion rate. Gaining better rapport with your customers is possible by having perfect content on your platform.

Final thoughts

Building an ecommerce store is quite an easy process but sustaining in the market is a challenging one. You should always update yourself with current trends and your platform should stand alone in the market. This is how many leading ecommerce giants are surviving and they are successful.