Online retail has shown a booming scene this year. Double Eleven and Black Friday shopping festivals continue to stimulate the growth of online consumption. It is believed that the craze for online shopping in 2021 will continue, especially due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic. Next, what other innovation trends will the industry have in 2021?

Trend 1 social shopping

Social shopping users make purchases on social media platforms, which provides shoppers with a more seamless way of online shopping. Users can make purchases directly from social media applications or websites without having to click to enter a third-party website.

The era of social shopping has arrived. In 2020 alone, we saw the partnership between TikTok and Shopify, expanded Snapchat’s Native Stores branded stores, and launched Facebook Shops. Click to view Yeahmobi's previous content ""Bringing Higher Conversion Rate and More Sales"! Analysis of Facebook Shops

Shops is a custom storefront for businesses on Instagram and Facebook. Sellers can access the same store from Facebook and Instagram, so once set up, it is possible for sellers to attract a broad global audience on both platforms.

In short: More than 50% of people in the world use social media. In 2021, for brands and shoppers, social shopping will become an indispensable part of the e-commerce experience.

Trend 2 New methods of online celebrity marketing

In the past, Internet celebrity marketing took the form of selfies, which included elaborate subtitles and heavily edited products and pictures. But in 2020, we have seen a major change in the way of cooperation between brands and influencers. The content of influencer marketing has gradually transformed into original authentic aesthetics. This change will continue until 2021.

The audience will trust the brand that shows the real voice, and nowadays savvy users can find over-produced ads. If you don’t attach importance to the authenticity of the brand when working with Internet celebrities, you may lose high user engagement and high return on investment. Now we should focus on the uniqueness of marketing content, which prioritizes educational, entertaining, and sharing experiences.

From the perspective of media portfolio, video will still be the most important medium for influencer marketing in 2021. Due to the closure of many physical stores, shoppers cannot try on clothes or tests in the store, and video is a more popular form.

In fact, many brands have already cooperated with influencers to create and share content on IGTV (Instagram’s independent video application), Instagram Live, TikTok and Instagram Reels to promote the activeness of the digital community.

Take Bandier, an authoritative fitness brand, as an example. Bandier cooperates with well-known internet celebrities in the industry to exercise on IG Live, and then publish the video to IGTV for those who missed the live broadcast to watch. This is a way to activate the brand community through common interests, and at the same time demonstrate the characteristics of its equipment.

Overall: In 2021, brands and Internet celebrities need to launch real video content to attract consumers.

Trend 3 AR-based shopping experience

Augmented reality (AR), machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) have been heavily used. A survey shows that more than 30% of consumers expect brands to improve their consumer experience through technical means such as smart makeup testing, VR/AR experience, smart interactive screens, self-service product browsing, and self-service ordering.

Although augmented reality in the retail industry is not new (Facebook carried out some major augmented reality initiatives in 2018), it has gone from a subtle function to an important part of retail e-commerce products.

During the epidemic, as a large number of shoppers continue to rely on online shopping, retailers have used AR technology to bridge the gap between digital and physical. In fact, IBM's 2020 US Retail Index report shows that COVID-19 has accelerated the transition to digital shopping for about five years.

Although brands such as IKEA, Home Depot, and Target have proprietary AR shopping experiences, AR-based commerce is not just for large brands.

Last year, Shopify launched Shopify AR, which allows companies to create their own AR experiences to show their products to customers. Shopify reports that when interacting with products with AR content, the conversion rate is 94% higher than products without AR.

In this issue of eclicktech, we will share with you the 2021 innovation trends brought to you! Later, we will launch more dry goods sharing on this topic, so stay tuned.