Top 5 Predicted Trends in eCommerce

We have seen a huge improvement in communication tools within the last year, which should come as no surprise. Customer enquiries are increasing with the huge demand for eCommerce service providers. We spoke to Blair Pleasant, who is the Co-founder of UC Strategies, president and analyst at Commfusion and another EM360 advisory board member, who gave us some of her insights on the subject:

"...eCommerce has led to what I'm calling 'eService for customer service.' This includes the use of digital channels like email, web chat, SMS, messaging channels like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, as well as the use of screen sharing, document sharing and co-browsing."

For her full thoughts on the subject., check out the video. 

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As much as we are seeing more industries start to invest in AI and new technologies, adopting these nifty pieces of tech comes with its challenges. Chief Revenue Office at OneUp Sales and advisory board member at EM360, Ian Moyse, believes that companies will start to contemplate these new pieces of kit, assessing what value it can bring to their business.  Moyse states:

"...I think we're going to see more looking at AI, not necessarily deployment because it isn't easy to delve straight into AI and automate everything and have automation bots doing it all; it's costly and complex. Amazon does it extremely well, we all want to aspire to that eCommerce, but people will start projects in that area."

Narrowing down your market is marketing 101, and it's something that retailers have been doing since the dawn of the industry. So, it's only reasonable to assume that this is going to accelerate with the increase of eCommerce in 2021. President of Star CIO and EM360 Advisory Board Member Isaac Sacolick gave us his insights on the subject, stating that:

"...I think the number one thing we're going to see eCommerce companies putting money and time into is their customer 360 and customer data profile platforms, and that's just because everybody to compete today needs to be more data driven. These are technologies that have been around for nearly a decade, but they've really come to fruition over the last five years with data integration capabilities, with machine learning capabilities. So given where we are, and given that we're going to be in this more digital, remote world for a little while longer, I think this is going to be the number one trend that we see eCommerce companies investing in in 2021."

As the rate of digitalisation increases, so do cyber threats, which of course complicates our ability to manage our eCommerce businesses with ease. Co-founder of Sensora and EM360 Advisory Board Member Jurijs Rappaports identified several key areas in which cyber threats might increase in 2021:

"...cyber threats will be increasing [sic]. I can define several trends where attacks will increase. First, it will be our homes because of remote working styles. Mobile phones will also be a target, automotive of course, and usage of AI for offence and security will come to a new level I think."

Customer expectations change with the market, and the increased usage of eCommerce is no exception to this rule. We spoke to CEO of AskTheCEO media Avrohom Gottheil for his thoughts on the subject, who stated: 

"So, during the course of 2020, global eCommerce sales increased significantly due to the fact that many people were stuck in their homes and had no choice but to purchase online. Now, one trend that I'm predicting is an increase in on-demand same day service, whether by drone or by some autonomous delivery service, or even via lo-tech human courier."