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eCommerce: the 2020 Vision

January 3, 2020 5 min read
eCommerce has evolved rapidly over the past few years. But with 2020 now in swing, here are some big trends to keep an eye on!
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The eCommerce market has come a long way over this last decade, with innovative payment solutions, advertising opportunities and an exciting range of tools for businesses and consumers to use in order to spread the word about brands that matter to them.

Over the course of 2019 alone, the digital market alone reached a valuation of over $3.5 trillion, according to research by Oberlo earlier in the same year. To no-one’s surprise, having reported previously on Singles day in November, it’s China that’s leading the way, with the US as a distant second.

At $3.5trn, eCommerce has increased by over 20% in 2019, thanks in large part to an increase in the number of people getting plugged into the internet across the world.


Internet penetration rate by region:

North America: 89% Europe: 87% Latin America: 68.9%

Oceania: 68.4% Asia: 54.2%


So, with the beginning of 2020, what are some of the big trends out there for businesses to keep in mind?

Going (more) Digital

The internet has truly transformed the way that we do business and buy products, and that’s no real surprise when you think about it. Growth in the number of online users reached 4,585 billion users globally by 2020 which was a sharp increase from 4,119 billion in 2019. Since the introduction of the internet, we have seen a continual growth of users year-on-year, averaging around 8%. 

With so much growth over the past two decades, there’s still more to come for people across the world, and especially for eCommerce.

Emerging markets like Asia have stormed ahead in the number of people using phones for eCommerce payments.

Online stores never close, for one, and offer consumers a convenient way to get the products they’re looking for. The number of people logging on to buy anything from electronics to furniture and fashion has risen reliably to nearly 2bn people in 2019.

And that’s a number that’s only going to rise over the next few years. According to Oberlo; by 2021, more than 2.14bn people will be going digital with their buying.

What’s impressive is that this statistic is a pretty conservative estimate when looking at emerging markets like Asia and Latin America. Both continents having a larger number of people obtaining access to the internet and especially smartphones.


Visual Marketing: Augmented and Virtual eCommerce

One of the big advantages that brick and mortar retailers have over their digital counterparts are the visuals. But with the steady introduction of 5G and, as a result, easier accessibility to technology like Augmented/Virtual Reality, online retailers are closing the gap.


The creation of an IoT-based eCommercial market, along with Augmented/Virtual Reality spells a very digitalised future for businesses.

Companies like Quiver and Mikasa as just some examples of how AR can be used in order to add another dimension to art-based apps, interior decorating and retail. What it also does is save consumers a lot of time on browsing shops and visualising what certain things would look like by doing the majority of the heavy lifting for them.

With a better scale from 5G and an understanding from many companies that the future is going mobile, these uses of AR/VR will only become more numerous.

eCommerce and Advertising: The Social Touch


Media advertising has transformed drastically over the past few years alone, and social media is a big catalyst. In a survey by Avionos last year found that 55% of people bought products from a company directly thanks to its activity on social media.

Consumers love the personal touch; with a bigger proportion buying and recommending companies that directly communicate with them on one or more of their social media pages.

While Google has become a marketplace for any kind of business, social media is where the battle of retention and conversion take place.

With this in mind, when Google grows in importance, so too does social media in 2020.

The Power of Social Media, Smarter Advertising and Personalisation

“Work smarter, not harder” is a motto that businesses will have to embrace over this year, as targetting consumers becomes far more about blurring the line between the initial conversation and the transaction.

It’s a no-brainer to say that social media is a big part of that, 90% of businesses use social media pages like Facebook, why? It’s a massive driver for social engagement and ‘continuing’ the conversation to your own website.

eCommerce businesses need to make sure they’re not just the end-stage of a customer’s journey; and that they’re part of a longer conversation.

If you’re not one of those businesses that leverage social media, then you’re not listening to your consumers; as 78% of them believe that it’s the future of eCommerce and business online.

What’s also important is the need for is personalisation, which blends into smarter advertising, really. The lion’s share of customers not only like personalisation – they expect it!

But personalisation can be done in ways that are far more direct, with one of the clear examples being product personalisation on digital platforms like Amazon. Platforms can also gather information from their users in order to ensure that what they see is more relevant to them.

But this all tracks back to the same challenge of trust.

The big Hurdle: Trust

Even though some of the most powerful weapons in the hands of consumers and businesses are social media channels like Facebook, they’re also part of a longer-spanning issue of trust.

More acute demonstrations of this included scandals like Cambridge Analytica, which served as a very public exclamation point on the topic of personal information and security online. Research by UNCTAD in June 2019 found that 75% of people have a fundamental mistrust of the internet; highlighting social channels like Facebook as to why.

While leaks on social media are a big component, the front-runner remains the growing risk associated with eCommerce from cybercrime; of which 81% of the same people surveyed pointed to.


With personal privacy on the internet playing such a big role in whether people buy online or not, the worst-case scenario, according to nearly 50% of people surveyed, is that they either refuse to share information or refuse to buy online at all.

So what is it that businesses can do to address these concerns? Greater transparency, for one. Cookie-based tracking, for example, has steadily moved from being something that websites let happen in the background, to something that’s far more open and, at times, elective.

Browsers like Brave have made a name for providing users with a higher level of security, but also in offering rewards for users that do provide information that helps them.

While businesses will really need to consider new and creative ways in which to re-build this trust amongst consumers, the government’s implementation of data protection laws like GDPR, PSD2 and the more recent CCPR means that 2020 will be all about winning that trust back and holding it with a firm set of hands.

What are your thoughts on the digital market? And where do you see it going in 2020? Let us know!

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