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As we round out 2018, the tendency is to reflect back on the year we’ve had — the way the industry changed, the successes and failures, the lessons learned. Call me a prognosticator or maybe just a Fleetwood Mac fan, but I prefer to subscribe to this mentality:
“Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow/ Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here/ It’ll be, better than before/ Yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone.”
Before 2019 is indeed here, let’s apply that philosophy to the e-commerce space and posit some predictions that are sure to make the new year even more exciting than the last.
1. Direct-to-consumer brands will continue to flourish.
It’s not that Amazon, other marketplaces or department store-style retailers aren’t important anymore — they undoubtedly are and will continue to be (see prediction No. 3). But in selling directly to the consumer via modern online presence, brands have the opportunity to create and control the full experience that they’re offering their customers, and it’s that full-brand experience that wins people over these days. By being able to fuse engaging marketing, unique products, curated inventory, tailored payment methods and even flexible shipping options, direct-to-consumer brands will continue to win customers and convert them into loyal fans. Those newly minted fans who have a positive first shopping experience truly “subscribe” to the brand and are willing to spend more per order (and more often), thereby counterbalancing the historically transactional, one-and-done nature of e-commerce.
2. Headless commerce will get its seat at the table.
You’ve likely heard rumblings about “headless commerce” — the pairing of any presentation layer (i.e., a content management system) with a different back-end commerce platform. In 2019, headless commerce will have its coming-out party. The key reason why the concept of headless is so mouth-watering to brands is that content is king, has always been king and will always be king. In our high-touch world, a blend of written, visual, video and interactive content gives brands an avenue to connect with their consumers in a more personalized way, and finally, merchants will have the ability to meld that compelling content with the most powerful commerce tools and opportunities to monetize. This fundamental shift will take off and achieve critical mass across the web in 2019 because headless commerce can scale from the lowest-complexity, lowest-sophistication small or medium business on a simple blogging platform all the way up to Fortune 500 retailers that need their e-commerce operation to be highly configurable on both the front and back ends.
3. Amazon and others will raise the bar for consumer expectations even higher.
As if Amazon Prime membership hasn’t changed the game enough, Amazon keeps pushing the envelope when it comes to setting (and then resetting) consumer expectations for how e-commerce should work. Don’t be surprised when Amazon continues to expand one-hour delivery windows both seasonally and geographically along with pursuing its Amazon Go and 4-star store experiments, thus jumping the immediate fulfillment and product selection moats that traditional brick-and-mortar built around itself. Additionally, Amazon-owned and Amazon-affiliated brands will continue to flood the marketplace, allowing the company to increasingly command the price wars that win many consumers over. We can also expect more blockbuster deals like that which Amazon and Apple recently struck to rock the boat for both online shoppers and the third-party resellers they previously bought from.
(Full disclosure: BigCommerce has partnerships with Amazon and Apple.)
But it’s not just Amazon that’s influencing that consumer mindset. Stitch Fix and Glossier are two e-commerce trailblazers that I really admire and expect to continue doing great things in the new year. Both companies are constantly innovating and setting the bar for what a truly personalized customer experience looks and feels like, online and off.
4. Augmented reality and virtual reality shopping will remain tepid.
Sure, it’s flashy, cool and exciting to talk about, but AR and VR shopping enthusiasts will need a healthy dose of pragmatism in 2019. While I do believe larger retailers like Wayfair and Nordstrom may still dabble in the field, it’s still neither approachable nor scalable for the vast majority of online merchants. Not to mention, consumer adoption remains incredibly low. We won’t start seeing AR and VR truly democratized and made viable for retail until at least 2020 — and that’s assuming we haven’t moved on to a new shiny object by that point. There are far more pressing needs for merchants and their core technology partners to address anyway, from making payments smoother to shoring up data security and General Data Protection Regulation compliance.
The exciting thing about e-commerce is that it keeps evolving. Regardless of which predictions prove accurate in 2019, we can rest assured that we’ll continue to see shoppers interact with brands in new ways, marketplaces further curate the buying experience, and brands build immersive experiences that keep their audience engaged both online and off.