e-Commerce Trends in 2021

e-Commerce boomed in 2020 due to the Covid crisis, and it looks like Australians turned their mobile online shopping into a long-lasting habit. In its February eCommerce update, Australia Post stated that “online shopping is off to a strong start in 2021. National online purchases in January 2021 grew 44% year-on-year (YOY) but couldn’t compete with December’s record-breaking numbers.”

Here are 4 trends Shopify merchants should know about to stay ahead of the curve in 2021 when shipping via courier, freight providers or Australia Post:

Search with voice assistants

Voice assistants such as Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant, Amazon’s Alexa and Samsung’s Bixby are HOT. Definitely consider how your clients would phrase their search if they were to use their voice. For instance, if you own a party supplies eStore, maybe target sentences such as “What is the best party supplies store in Australia?” or “Party supplies near me.”

Social shopping

How much time do you spend on your mobile phone each day? Social shopping implies allowing your customers to purchase your products directly from Facebook or Instagram, simply by clicking on your post. Easy!

It’s very clear that in today’s marketplace it’s important to have a multi-channel approach which includes social media.

If you’re only using eBay or Amazon, the customers are not yours, so you cannot gather valuable data required to build a successful brand. Using a multi-channel approach gives you far more options where you can market to your own customer base regularly. 

When retailers implement multi-channel marketing plans, customer retention increases by 91%. While there are many reasons for this, the largest is the fact that 9 out of 10 customers want cross-channel ecommerce, and they’re willing to stick with the brands that offer it.

Sustainable eCommerce practices

This is especially important with younger customers, who are more keen on changing their consumption habits to reduce environmental impact than baby boomers. Shopify merchants should consider reducing packaging for instance or use less packages per order when shipping your products via couriers.

Read our article Green Packaging for more ideas.

Make the shipping part easy for your customer… and yourself!

Discover your new best friend Smart Send Premium app for Shopify (https://shopifyshipping.smartsend.com.au) that enables your Shopify store to:

• Provide ‘real-time’ shipping costs at checkout
• Automate fulfillment of checkout orders
• Display ‘real-time’ tracking to your customers
• Generate PDF shipping labels for easy despatch of goods
• Provide merchants & your customers with competitively priced shipping services

Things just got a whole lot easier…

Smart Send provides Shopify store owners our easy to install Smart Send Premium app via the Shopify App Store or https://shopifyshipping.smartsend.com.au.  In just a few minutes the app is installed on your Shopify store (no expensive developers required !).

It is vital to the success of every Shopify business that you understand and select the right delivery partners that reflect your branding and the image you wish to portray to your buyer. Please consider Smart Send, we have 15+ years experience in helping Australian eCommerce stores ship easier, faster and more profitably.