E-commerce has become an inevitable part of everyone’s lives. Renting movies, shopping, doing long distance courses, or even selling off second-hand goods have all become easier with the development of e-commerce.

All this highlights the fact that e-commerce is here to stay for long and good. A study conducted by NASDAQ reveals that 95 percent of purchases will be facilitated by e-commerce. Experts project a number of key trends to happen in the e-commerce industry in this year.

Customers are increasingly leveraging their smartphones for online shopping and many other e-commerce services with the development of 3G and 4G services. Therefore, e-commerce platforms need to have that capacity to be compatible both on desktops and on smartphones to be able to leverage the millennial mobile generation.

Another growing trend that is set to make a significant impact is multi-channel shopping. E-commerce companies need to adopt strategies that help them target clients across multiple channels and websites including blogs, forums, social media pages, and so on. Additionally, since more backlinks amount to better Google rankings, it offers an added advantage as well. All this increases the online market exposure of your company thereby ensuring development and maintaining of market share.

Recent studies show that 80percent of online shoppers would refrain from further engagements if basic requirements such as clear checkout methods and quick return policies are not provided. This makes adopting cutting-edge software is an absolute necessity. Employing a cloud-based strategy for e-commerce websites would be a sure step at increasing customer satisfaction and thereby increasing the chance of future endeavors.

Since all these trends are based on predictions, companies should use their judgments to understand which trends to employ and which to refrain from. This is because the realm of e-commerce and purchasing within the cloud is going to be a long-standing trend. The best way to remain competitive in the market and surge ahead of the competition is to understand where the online marketplace is headed to.