A deeper understanding of the trends and dynamics of the online environment can mean the difference between mediocrity and success for any entity doing business on the internet.
The stellar growth of the online world as a buying and selling platform is a known quantity. However, a closer scrutiny of current online trends and patterns is worthy of investigation.
Optimizing opportunity online
Regardless of business scale and the degree of transaction online, the changes in consumer buying patterns suggest that a commercial operator’s online presence is becoming ever more critical.
It benefits the marketing manager to ask themselves the question – “Is our business optimizing its presence online?” Establishing an effective online presence has grown quickly since the old days of putting up a hastily constructed webpage. As a result, fine-tuning and enhancing online presence has progressively become a specialist area. A leading-edge consultancy like Click Intelligence LTD can ensure that the business enterprise is taking the best advantage of the opportunity.
The trend toward virtual business
In recent years, e-commerce has enjoyed exponential growth, which has fast outstripped traditional ‘brick and mortar’ business growth. Before the current global pandemic, the ‘digitalization’ of everyday life – the ease and accessibility of the internet and developments in online shopping and transaction technology – was already seeing a quantum shift in how consumers were going about business.
Even for those businesses and industry sectors not directly engaged in e-commerce, some form of online presence was becoming a virtual necessity, as people have placed a primary reliance on referring to an online search to seek out information and suppliers of goods and services.
Last year, over two billion consumers purchased goods and services online. The value of e-commerce globally in the period was estimated at 4.2 trillion US dollars. This is projected to rise progressively over the next few years
Further developments during the global pandemic
A closer scrutiny of consumer trends as a result of the worldwide health crisis is worthwhile. It is now well known that business practices across various industry sectors have often seen dramatic and sudden changes during this period. Lockdowns and restrictions have meant changes to daily business, typically involving a heavier reliance on remote working and virtual conferencing.
Importantly, consumer patterns have similarly changed as people face those same restrictive factors. Unsurprisingly, people have increasingly turned to online activity for both leisure and business purposes. This phenomenon has further driven online browsing and purchasing.
Notably, online shopping was reported as one of the most popular activities globally. Moreover, in 2020, worldwide e-commerce sales enjoyed a significant growth of 25% on the previous year during the pandemic.
An important takeaway from this current trend is that once consumers have established a pattern of browsing and buying, they appear to then adopt those changing patterns as the norm.
Moving with the market
Understanding the progressively changing online dynamic is vital. However, for the astute marketing manager, the key to success lies in responding to those changes and optimizing online presence to set the business apart from its competition.
