2020 was a big year for e-commerce. Depending upon the source you look at, it’s easy to find data indicating we experienced 8-12 years of e-commerce growth in just a few short months. Some industries thrived in the need to adopt and evolve e-commerce quickly this year, others were challenged by it. There were winners (those that adopted, invested, and evolved their e-commerce) and there were losers (those that did nothing or simply decided to maintain the status quo.) Our hypothesis is that 2021 is going to be similarly challenging for e-commerce merchants. There will be those merchants that capitalize on continued growth by investing in it properly and those that don’t.

B2C merchants will be faced with evolving the shopping experience to match the most innovative upstarts and brands with creative horsepower. B2B merchants will be faced with keeping their customers happy and maintaining loyalty as their customers explore marketplaces and direct buying options that can threaten their livelihood. As the pandemic ends e-commerce resources will be stretched as merchants look to modify and evolve online shopping to meet or exceed the expectations of in-person shopping. Given this backdrop and the uncertainty around when “normal” will return, here are 5 trends the Accorin team believes merchants will want to adopt as the year progresses:

1. The demise of the plain old “catalog” website and the “shopping cart” checkout

Many more merchants, including B2B merchants will enable seamless shopping and purchasing from different experiences that are outside of a website “catalog.” We all purchased consumer goods off of Instagram in the last couple of years and that trend will continue to grow across multiple social platforms and other types of sites. Shoppers want continued personalization and convenience and that means mixing in-person, e-commerce, and social shopping together in ways that make shopping intuitive, natural and fun. E-commerce will be as complex as ever behind the scenes with complex integrations, architectures, security requirements and complex dev ops. But consumer will want more of the following types of experiences:

Instagram product tease → learn more video → shop the details and prices→ purchase on phone

Text message that it’s time to ship your refill “Do You Want it?” text “YES” to confirm

Google search for outdoor heater→ several retailers explored→ Instagram ad implores shopper to “pick this up curbside today – prices increase in 3 days!” to the user who shopped but then moved on

An industrial purchaser who is googling product is greeted with an offer and product video presented from the most recent merchant that they visited. They watch the video and and receive an offer / discount code and tap “yes” to enroll

A procurement manager for a construction firm that has conducted significant heavy equipment research received an offer from a cable and electrical supply vendor and they make a purchase – even though they had not googled for those products on this computer.

2. Continued Meteoric Mobile and PWA Growth

Over the last two years most B2C merchants watched their “percent of transactions from smart phones” move from below to well above 50%. This is going to continue in B2C as well as more sophisticated B2B buying experiences enable more self-service purchasing from field operations, factory floors and voice commands while driving.

3. Headless, and the Growth of Content-Based Merchandising, even for B2B

For B2C the content and the stories that show how merchandise is used will continue to be the driving force of UX innovation. For B2B the experiences are going to evolve outside of the catalog and shopping cart to a place where customers can self-service “sales demos” with rich experiences. The continuing evolution of UX and merchandising will mean that headless platforms will evolve to service the very unique needs of B2B brands as well, not just B2C. How?

B2B sites will guide buyers thr...