By Jacob Loveless
The year 2021 inspired incredible change in the e-commerce industry as a result of the effects of Covid in 2020. From improved automation to artificial intelligence to virtual and augmented reality, the pandemic caused a paradigm shift from “the normal way” of things to “the new way.”
These new changes forced many e-commerce businesses to pivot to a new way of doing business.
A quick example is how Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, couldn’t meet the one-day delivery for non-edible items and same-day delivery for edible items it promised its Prime customers.
To fix this, Amazon introduced “Amazon Scout.” This fully electric autonomous-delivery system rolls down the sidewalk at a walking pace and delivers right to customers. With a big player like this in the e-commerce business pivoting to an advanced delivery method, a chain of new trends in e-commerce will emerge.
Related: A Beginner’s Guide to Building a Profitable Ecommerce Business
The lasting effect of the pandemic positions the U.S. e-commerce industry to hit $1 trillion by 2022—and below are five trends that will contribute to that.
1. Voice Search for Shopping
Whether you’re at home, in the office, or practically anywhere, simply speaking to any of your voice-enabled gadgets makes things a whole lot easier. It’s no wonder why voice-search AIs like Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and Google’s Assistant are tapping into it.
Current stats estimate the voice-assistant-speaker market to reach around $4 billion in 2022. With voice shoppers expected to increase by 55 percent and voice shopping hitting $40 billion by 2022, it’s safe to assume this will be a trend.
For e-commerce-business owners, this creates an opportunity to employ voice-search-optimization strategies to rank for keywords and phrases that perfectly suit voice-search queries.
