Just last year, global ecommerce sales alone amounted to a staggering $5.8 trillion and is only projected to keep growing. Not surprisingly, this was helped along as customer shopping preferences took to the web during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and only scaled upwards ever since.
This paradigm shift enriched businesses while sinking others into oblivion, as entrepreneurs reorganized their businesses towards heavier ecommerce marketing campaigns and less brick-and-mortar.
If there’s one lesson that can be glossed from this is that future businesses are at risk if they do not have a heavy online presence.
If you yourself are a business owner, then you must familiarize yourself with every effective ecommerce marketing channel.
If necessary, you may even have to liquidate your store front to save on money and rely entirely on an email list for 2024 and beyond.
Lucky for you, you’re an intuitive and shrewd observer who’s either trying to start your own ecommerce store, or you’re a veteran entrepreneur looking to avoid previous mishaps and failures going into the future.
Not to worry, I’ll cover some of the things you’ll need to know about ecommerce marketing in 2024, along with some trends, strategies, and common misconceptions.
The Current State of Ecommerce Marketing
Ecommerce marketing is a necessity for every entrepreneur wishing to do business in 2024 and beyond. But what does this mean for your advertising and outreach efforts?
What are the most effective channels for sustainable (and successful) marketing that you can implement into your ecommerce business structure that will make your efforts worth the while?
First, let’s look at some interesting stats.
Statistics and Market Overview
According to Digital Commerce 360, total retail sales in ecommerce grew 3.8% in 2023, and is poised to grow 8.8% in 2024. What’s even more shocking is that the total market valuation is expected to nearly double by 2032 to $9 trillion — that’s just in eight short years.
Consumer Behavior in 2024
While consumers prefer human interaction in the marketplace, statistics show that they expect both the ecommerce and in-person experiences to be roughly the same in quality.
This means that if you plan on going full digital, you will be expected to offer a personalized experience tailored specifically to the customer.
This can be challenging to do when you are new and haven’t yet scaled your business with the necessary marketing campaigns — more on that later.
Key Trends Shaping Ecommerce Marketing in 2024
Consumers in the U.S. spend nearly $14 trillion every year which make up around two-thirds of the entire U.S. economy.
That said, a sizeable proportion involves the purchases of essential goods that revolve around the microeconomy (that is, consumable household goods and services).
With so much expenditure and cash circulating throughout the economy, how can you build sustainable relationships with these consumers that can guarantee greater ecommerce efficiency in an increasingly digital world?
Personalization and AI
As someone in ecommerce learning how to adapt to the changing marketing landscape, the idea of personalization may seem like another obstacle to overcome.
Truth is that people want to feel like they’re interacting with a real person throughout the entire customer nurturing phase.
And with AI becoming increasingly common in handling the more mundane tasks in ecommerce, customers may become suspicious and lose trust in you.
Voice Commerce
To counter some of this, you may have to employ voice commerce as a part of your customer user experience. This is AI for voice assistant tools such as Alexa, Siri, or Google Assistant, to provide customers with personalized answers to their questions.
You’ve may have already encountered some of this technology if you have ever gone online to a company’s Help page for customer service.
Sustainability and Ethical Shopping
According to a 2020 consumer McKinsey survey, over 60% of respondents are willing to pay more for products with sustainable packaging. As an ecommerce businessperson, seamlessly “trivial” issues such as these will be critical for the growth and survivability of your business in the foreseeable future.
And how can you align yourself with the consumer demand for ethics and sustainability in your ecommerce business model? Listen to your customers.
Go where they hang out online and see what concerns them the most and incorporate those concerns into your plan for the long haul.
Such online hang-out spots such as Reddit, and Amazon product reviews are a data mining godsend. Pay attention to these customer concerns and integrate the feedback into your product descriptions (which also makes for great SEO).
Effective Ecommerce Marketing Strategies in 2024
As of this year, over 300 billion emails are sent each day. This should not surprise you considering the fact that there are over 4 billion email accounts worldwide. Why should this matter to you and your ecommerce business?
Content Marketing and SEO
Content optimized for search on Google is the holy grail of organic inbound traffic to your ecommerce store. Without pages on your site optimized around keywords, chances are you will never be found by the billions of potential customers who use Google each day.
If bidding on expensive ads on Facebook or Google isn’t an option for you, SEO can provide a lucrative way to market your business for years to come.
Social Media and Influencer Marketing
Another great way to market your business to a potentially large customer base is with the use of social media and influencers.
Just in 2021, there was the case of a pair of butt-lift leggings going viral on TikTok which resulted in tens of thousands of sales almost overnight.
Facebook groups of fashionistas raved about the leggings suddenly giving them a flattering look that previously did not exist. You can use the same tactics by getting your products in front of people who have a sizeable social media following.
Omni Channel Marketing
As more and more consumers prefer to go online to do their shopping, you will have to integrate several avenues of marketing for your brand to attract and retain customers.
By combining email marketing, social media, and content marketing, you will create multiple pathways leading back to your business.
This is essential being that your customers will have a wide range of preferences and habits, and so relying on one marketing channel may appeal to only a specific segment of your customer base. The best approach is for a system of omnichannel marketing to maximize your outreach.
Common Misconceptions about Ecommerce Marketing
If you’re old school (like myself), you might think that all of this talk around ecommerce marketing will never supplant the good ol’ brick-and-mortar shops that make up much of the infrastructure surrounding commerce.
You might even think the opposite in that a single Google ad might bring in millions of new customers to your online shop.
What are some common misconceptions that you should be aware of as you begin to shift towards a more radical and effective ecommerce marketing system to get your online store in front of as many eyes as possible?
Myth 1: More Traffic Equals More Sales
While high traffic volume is great for your ecommerce store, there’s also the issue of conversion rates. You do not simply want to get people to visit your store, you also want them to buy, or at least drop you their email by signing up for your newsletter and promotions for awesome discounts and deals.
You might get one million unique visitors to your ecommerce store in a month, but unless you get your products in front of them in the easiest and effective manner, they may end up leaving and never returning.
Myth 2: Email Marketing is Dead
With a staggering ROI of 4400% for businesses, it is near impossible to say that email marketing will ever die. Unless we are all required by the government to get a microchip implant for the unlimited sending and receiving of messages throughout time and space, email marketing will be around for a very long time.
It is cheap, efficient, rapid, and extremely inexpensive to send thousands of emails with pertinent information that just simply cannot be replicated in any other way. This is why you should take email marketing seriously and make it an integral part of your business.
Challenges and Opportunities Ahead
With new opportunities there are a slew of new challenges, some of which can make or break your efforts in establishing a strong base in the digital economy.
Here are some challenges you need to be informed about in order to protect your data, and adapt to the new technological innovations that can quickly make some of your most novel ideas obsolete.
Data Privacy and Security
With increased digitalization of the economy comes increased risk. You may decide to never keep an inventory of your products and instead rely on a manufacturer thousands of miles away of whom you have never met or spoken to personally.
As you begin to operate throughout the digital economy, your credit, identity, and financial transactions could be one click away from being hijacked by some unscrupulous person looking to make a quick buck.
Make sure your business and other assets are well secured so that you leave very little of yourself to compromise.
Technological Advancements
AI has penetrated virtually every aspect of our lives and is only increasing in its sophistication. This can either be very frightening to you, or perhaps present an unparallel opportunity that you can exploit in your ecommerce marketing campaigns.
As these various technologies become widely available to the public, you can scale your business to compete with brands with much more resources at their disposal, allowing you to break into their market share.
A Wrap Up
Ecommerce marketing in 2024 and beyond is definitely changing at an unprecedented pace and will only continue to expand exponentially. Hopefully you were able to see what challenges and opportunities lay ahead, and how you can capitalize on these changes to grow your own ecommerce business.
Summary of Key Points
- As of 2024, ecommerce sales amounted to $5.8 trillion and is only expected to grow.
- Despite not having to interact person-to-person in the customer funnel, customers still demand a personalized experience.
- Email marketing is going nowhere, so you are better off incorporating a well-planned omnichannel marketing plan in your business model.
- Though technology may blur the lines between man and machine, tools such as AI present unprecedented opportunities for those looking to scale their ecommerce digital footprint.
Final Thoughts
This was a non-exhausting list of the many challenges facing ecommerce marketers and business owners, and it is likely to keep evolving as new gamechangers such as AI continue to make waves in our daily experiences.
Ecommerce marketing doesn’t have to be hard for you or anyone else, and it shouldn’t be.
The massive returns of even a moderate omnichannel marketing strategy can do very well for your store as long as you take it seriously.
On the other hand, those who do not adapt will find it near impossible to remain relevant in a highly competitive landscape that demands deeper, personalized customer relationships that nurtures and converts continuously overtime.
Get Started
Convinced that you need to create or recalibrate your ecommerce marketing strategy in anticipation of the evolving economy? Perhaps you aren’t yet sure you know exactly what marketing campaigns best suits your online business model?
Engagement
I write articles on the latest news in ecommerce marketing, as well as facts and guides on how you can create or even hire someone to do to your marketing for you.
Just enable the notification email so you can stay informed with more articles like this one every week.