If it is true that to foresee the future it is necessary to study the past, as Confucius said, to make predictions about the new opportunities of the digital economy it is necessary to reflect on what has worked so far. From augmented reality to artificial intelligence, via social commerce and split payment, electronic commerce has been hit by a series of innovations, which have contributed to accelerating its development in terms of volumes and turnover.
The news
More and more e-commerce companies are using augmented reality to offer customers more engaging and interactive experiences before purchasing. For example, the well-known Swedish giant Ikea, through the Ikea Place service, allows you to virtually position furniture inside your home, in order to obtain a realistic view of the furniture even before buying. Ray-Ban, with Frame Advisor technology, helps users find the model of eyewear that best suits the characteristics of their face, by scanning their face or uploading their own photograph while sitting comfortably on the sofa at home. According to GlobalData analyses, the augmented reality market is destined to become a 152 billion dollar market by 2030. Artificial intelligence makes it possible to satisfy the specific needs of users, giving them a unique browsing and shopping experience; as if inside the physical store there was a salesman for every customer. Ai requires huge investments, but allows measurable results to be achieved in terms of increased sales and customer loyalty.
Social commerce
Most online purchases are made from mobile phones, which is perfectly consistent with the success of social commerce, i.e. the purchase of goods and services directly from social platforms (Facebook, Instagram and so on). This combination of social media and online sales is further emphasized by the integration of the so-called "Ugc" within the e-commerce product sheets. UGC are content created by users, and are increasingly reported in support of the description of a product in the related section "seen on social media", according to the principle that customers trust other customers first of all. The concept of “buy now, pay later” is also rapidly growing, i.e. the possibility for customers to split their payments into several interest-free installments. According to data released by Shopify, split payment can guarantee an increase of up to 50% in the average order value and a reduction in the cart abandonment rate of up to 28%.
