E-commerce is catching rapid growth year-by-year and the statistics that have appeared are beyond a layman’s acceptance level. According to Statistics, the total online sales of physical goods in 2016 in the US amounted to $360.3 Billion.

With unimpeded e-commerce progress, these figures are projected to cross $603 Billion in the year 2021. The concept of physical stores without being present on the internet is vanishing. In order to survive, every brand has to ensure its digital presence or else it’ll lose half of its customers straight.

E-commerce has put forward unprecedented advancements that have left the world stunned

Augmented Reality (AR) to a whole new level:

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E-commerce brands have smartly incorporated Augmented Reality (AR) to make their operations more lucrative. The AR feature allows the users to place the product virtually where they tend to place it before finally buying it. As anticipated, this would probably increase the sales of sizable products like furniture, electronic appliances, bathtubs, etc.

Research Online, Purchase Offline – ROPO is the new thing in town :

There was a time when it was impossible for businesses to measure the in-store sales derived by digital marketing. ROPO has resolved the issue. ROPO is a tool that can track the performance of your digital marketing campaigns by combining social media information, mobile tracking, in-store inventory, mobile payments, and more.

This can comprehensively form a result that which of the campaigns outperformed the others and which ads brought customers to in-store purchase. These results, if used effectively, can provide businesses with clear directions on how to plan the next digital marketing budget to elevate sales level.

Chat bots and voice ordering:

Placing orders on a tap was not the aim of e-commerce platforms, the goal is something bigger and much better than that. A glimpse of the future can be seen by the witnessing the chat bots and voice online ordering.

Automation and chat bots to facilitate better customer service have become old, many brands have now introduced voice searched ordering to online ordering fast and easy. Walmart allows its customers to order any of their products by speaking on the Google Express.

It’s not enough, effectively implementing the chat bots, Domino’s has introduced its messenger bot, Dom. It allows customers a full-menu ordering within a few seconds. Fast and easy as ABC.

Mobile purchasing at its peak:

The focus has been turned to mobile applications instead of desktop websites for e-commerce. Within a few months, 62% of smartphone users have made their online purchases using their mobiles instead of computers.

It is estimated that 70% of the e-commerce traffic will be diverted towards mobile. With the simplified features of payment through mobiles, fingerprint, and facial recognition mobile is about to become the preferred method of payment for e-commerce dealings.

The image search feature:

You liked a product in a store, you made your mind to purchase but it’s out of range, what would you do now?
eBay thought of it before you! Just take a picture of that product and leave the rest on eBay.

With remarkable progress in e-commerce, eBay’s image search feature will allow you to find similar products at an affordable price by just accepting an image from your photo gallery. This would bring the customers to online stores even if they made their purchase decision in a physical store.