FIVE CURRENT ECOMMERCE TRENDS WITH MAGENTO

Each year brings with it new trends in the ecommerce community. Specifically, with regard to open source ecommerce platform Magento, noticeable trends have emerged in line with evolving purchase habits and proliferation of mobile devices. Here’s a look at five trends making waves.

Personalization and targeted marketing

Marketing campaigns are increasingly targeting niche or smaller focus groups of customers. You’ll already be aware that customers are more likely to buy from you if your promotions resonate with them. Businesses are leveraging Magento’s promotional tools for targeted promotions and merchandising while also improving customer segmentation. A simple way of making the shopping experience more personal for customers is to suggest products based on what the consumer has previously looked at or had in their basket. Such strategies are helping businesses increase average cart values, especially during peak and holiday seasons.

Mobile responsiveness

Mobile commerce now accounts for 30 per cent of all ecommerce in the United States. If your ecommerce store is not optimized to the mobile screen, you may be losing out on a huge chunk of customers. Savvy businesses are already using Magento’s extensions to convert their desktop site to a mobile optimized website. It is easy to create a mobile-friendly website using one of Magento’s extensions such as CouchCommerce and responsive themes like Argento, Magento Mobile HTML5 or Neddev Magento Mobile. Another option is to convert your ecommerce store to a mobile shopping cart app for different operating systems. An improvement in the usability of such apps makes them a good alternative to mobile sites.

Social eCommerce

Purchases, in large part, are influenced by user recommendations, comments, ratings and other user- generated content on social media. Prevailing ecommerce trends point to a tighter relationship between social media and eCommerce platforms. From Magento’s perspective that means investing in social commerce extensions that allows customers to seamlessly move from site to social media site. For instance, with the AddThis extension, you can choose the social networks on which you want to facilitate sharing of products. Another option is SocialShare, that makes it possible to configure a share button for the main social networks: Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and Pinterest. There are also some interesting extensions that allow you to integrate Facebook comments in your store, and enable users to log in to your store through their social profiles.

Responsive website design themes

The massive adoption of smartphones and tablets have made it essential to consider Magento responsive themes. It has become critical to ensure that your ecommerce store can be viewed just as easily and clearly on a tablet or smartphone as it can on a desktop. Responsive designs optimize webpage viewing experience across all screen sizes. Other benefits include scalability, SEO friendliness and cost effectiveness. The best responsive Magento themes include: Trego – Premium Responsive, Legenda – Fluid Responsive, Sweet House Free Magento 1.7.0.1 Template, HelloWired, Granada and Mango.

Niche marketplaces

There has been a steady uptick in the number of niche online marketplaces, in large part due to consumers’ expectations for specialized products and services. This trend has seen an increase in the number of niche ecommerce sites developed on Magento. There is no dearth of responsive Magento themes created for specific markets. You can choose from thousands of templates to deliver the desired user interface and experience.

Interactive product displays

More and more Magento users are using interactive product and lifestyle imagery to present their products in a compelling way. Lifestyle imagery connects emotionally with customers by showing a real life situation. For instance, you can showcase your clothing on a man or woman at a café or on the street instead of displaying it against a white background. You can also add videos – how-to, demonstrations, reviews and more – to your product pages for a more interactive experience. Custom interactive product pages enhance user engagement, and along with social media functionality, can take user experience to another level.