The wave of mobiles is sweeping all over the world. According to a report of We are Social, two-thirds of the world’s 7.6 billion inhabitants now have a mobile phone and there are more than 5 billion mobile phone users in 2018. This wave of E-commerce application development has totally changed the game for retailers.

It’s obvious that mobile app development has become an integral part of any business’s growth strategy, especially the retail firm’s. These apps may help you increase your sales, improve your customer loyalty, enhance their experience and give a boost to your brand.

A few years ago, designing a mobile app or website for your company was a luxury, but now it’s getting cheaper and easier.

E-Commerce Application Development: 6 Latest Technologies and Trends You Can’t Ignore

If your company is going to have an E-commerce app developed, make sure you are staying up-to-date with the latest technologies and trends.

70% of companies say that E-commerce application development has urged them to transform their businesses and experiences

1. Augmented Reality: The Future of E-commerce Stores

Pokemon Go is the most well-known application of Augmented Reality application. However, this technology is not just for gaming. It is also applied in the E-commerce industry.

The rapid pace of modern life doesn’t allow you to take hours at a fashion shop to try on all dresses you want to buy. That’s why there are more and more people doing online shopping.

However, have you ever bought a dress from an online shop but it disappoints you because it is not like what you imagine? Since almost all of us are not good at imagining, thus we tend to buy what we love whether it’s suitable for us or not.

Purchasing goods is getting easier and easier with an Augmented Reality device. | Source: Pinterest.

Augmented Reality is the solution to this problem. It helps visualize our purchase and enhance our experience when shopping.

The most successful E-commerce application that is integrated with Augmented Reality technology is Sephora Virtual Artist. Customers can try on various makeup looks, take a photo of an outfit and learn how to do makeup on this app with tutorials.

After finding the most suitable makeup for themselves, they can confidently buy the items they want. This satisfies both businesses and customers, the former can increase the conversion rate and the latter can save their time and money when doing shopping online.

2. Artificial Intelligence: Improving E-commerce services and Optimizing Customer Experience

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is completely transforming every walk of life, from the way we entertain the way we go shopping. That leads to the fact that the method of selling goods needs to be changed to attract and retain customers in the future.

Nowadays, a number of AI-based tools are used on almost all e-commerce websites to support customers in purchasing goods.

For example, you may see an automatic chat box appear whenever you visit some e-commerce website. There will be some simple greetings displayed on the screen such as “Hi, I am…, what kinds of products are you looking for? May I help you?”…This conversation is not carried out by the human but by a robot, which is commonly known as “chatbot”. Besides chatbot, are there any other AI applications?

3. Visual Search

People get used to typing the words or phrases into the search bar of search engines whenever they are looking for something. However, this method doesn’t work in some cases.

For example, imagine you are walking on the street then you see a beautiful girl wearing so lovely a dress that you want to buy it instantly. You come back home and spend hours in front of the laptop describing the dress to Google but you can not find it on the internet. The only thing you can do is to give up the intention to buy your favourite dress. Now, this problem is resolved by Visual Search, which allows you to search for items by photos.

• Did you know: Image Recognition: Its revolutionary role in the business world

Visual Search in E-commerce was first used by Zappos in 2009. In the last 10 years, retailers have been trying to keep up with this technology and build their own apps with a Visual Search tool.

In July 2017, eBay also integrated two tools for image searches into eBay’s native app, which are Find It On eBay and Image Search. The former allows customers to share any images from other websites including social networks onto the eBay app to find the items similar to those images. Meanwhile, the latter allows customers to take photos of the products they want to buy and then insert them into the search bar on the eBay app. The app will automatically scan 1.1 billion items on eBay and show you the ones which are the most similar to images you upload.

In Vietnam, one of the Visual Search tools has also been announced in 2018 by Savvycom applying for grocery goods which can help you find items through photos. In this application, everything customers need to do is uploading or snapping a photo of the items that they are looking for, clicking to the find button, choosing and buying.

4. Voice Search

A survey conducted by comScore, a market research company, shows that by 2020, there will be at least 50% of search done by voice. Smart speakers integrated with virtual assistants like Amazon Alexa or Google Home enable customers not only to search but also to place an order, which saves customers’ time and energy when doing online shopping.

Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Windows Hey Cortana and Apple Siri are the most well-known virtual assistants | Source: Internet.

Voice Search is getting more and more popular when virtual assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri or Google Assistant, are integrated into smart devices. That means e-commerce retailers need to optimize their websites and change their SEO strategy to satisfy their customers.

An important thing they should keep in mind is that the keywords customers search by typing are so different from the ones searched by speaking. For example, when you are looking for a restaurant in Sydney, you might use a non-sentence, such as “best restaurant in Sydney”; however, when doing a voice search, you will likely use a grammatically correct sentence: “which are the best restaurants in Sydney?”

A recent research reveals that Visual Search and Voice Search reduce the search time for customers; therefore, they quickly make the decisions of purchasing goods, which leads to better lead conversions.

5. Chatbot

As mentioned above, one of the most well-known applications of AI in E-commerce E-commerce application development is Chatbot. A chatbot is a computer program that simulates a human to communicate with customers and support them in the purchase process.

Chatbots are typically designed to:

• Help streamline the sales process
• Optimize customer experience, available 24/7 to support customers.

Being a cutting-edge technology company, Savvycom has been doing research and applying AI to the latest products. Fred – an AI chatbot that was built to be people’s assistant at work, in daily life or even in a personal relationship. Even though it is the first step of integrating AI into the app, it delivers more than an excellent experience in UI and UX.

FRED | Credit: Savvycom.

Remarkable Features:

• Connection Management: building a small in-app society by connecting with users’ contact lists.
• Personality Test: Helping to define a user’s personality based on Fred’s cards that are chosen randomly by users. Based on your Personality test results, the chatbot also gives 5 tips weekly to users to help improve their lives through weekly tips notification.
• Learn more about self: focusing on user’s daily needs and provides options such as Job Hunting Advice, Relationship Advice, Promotional Advice, Personality Type Advice.
• Learn more about others: helping to improve user’s interaction, reduce a social awkwardness and turn users into a conversationalist by providing options.
• Security: A security system is integrated within Fred to reduce the risk of exposing data, manipulating the web, data getting intercepted and read during transmission.

If you are running an E-commerce business, it’s obviously crucial to work out an effective digital marketing strategy.

A website that is integrated with chatbots can provide 24/7 customer services and automate order processes. Also, they are an economical method for business to track customer behaviours, collect and analyse data.

That means Chatbot is an effective tool to create marketing & sales funnel, support in remarketing, reduce advertising expenses and increase conversion rates.

Research conducted by Juniper Research reveals that chatbots will save more than $8 billion annually by 2022. Businesses have web and mobile apps developed with AI technology to provide excellent customer services and enhance their experience.

6. Blockchain Technology: A Faster, Safer and More Transparent

We used to discuss the advantages Blockchain bring us in Fintech and Healthcare in previous blogs.

Now, let’s talk about how E-commerce business can benefit from E-commerce application development.

6.1 E-commerce Payment System

Online shopping now allows some methods of payments such as Cash On Delivery (COD), Unified Payment Interface (UPI), PayPal & Payoneer, Payment Wallet, Net Banking, Wire Transfer, Debit Card & Credit Card.

Customers have been used to these methods for such a long time that they may not want to change the way they pay while doing online shopping. However, Blockchain can change their behaviours in the future since it allows customers not to pay the transaction fee.

Customers can send money directly to retailers without the third-party. As a result, the speed of the transaction will increase. This technology also allows us to make instant and clear payments, leading to speedy out-shipping product process. Customers will be no longer waiting for hours or even days for delivery.

6.2 Security

Blockchain development can assure a higher level of security for E-commerce applications. If the customer’s data is traditionally stored on centralized servers, there is a high risk of online criminals. Data can be hacked anytime, which will be a great catastrophe for E-commerce companies.

However, Blockchain technology allows customer data to be decentralized. Consequently, it’s completely safe for people to do shopping online.

6.3 Supply chain management

Perhaps this is one of the most promising Blockchain application in E-commerce industry as it can resolve almost all problems current supply chain system is today.

Blockchain development has been playing an important role in supply chain management Source: targetintegration.

Blockchain technology allows businesses to track data along the supply chain, which increases transparency and reduces expenses. Buyers can also track the purchase orders, easily change orders or follow up the shipments.

Moreover, every single transaction can be recorded in “blocks”, which helps us cut per-transaction costs. Blockchain-based application development is playing an important role in supporting businesses in management and growth.

How Savvycom take advantages of these technologies?

Having experience in developing e-commerce applications for many customers in various markets such as Singapore, America and Australia, Savvycom is one of the most prominent outsourcing companies in Vietnam.

As a featured achievement, Savvycom is proud to be the developer of iHeartLocal, the best mobile application in CES Mobile App Showdown 2016 and be rated as one of the top trustworthy referral networks in the US and European countries.

Crave Vend built by Savvycom is also a fantastic deal application driving value for consumers & retailers with a cost-effective, smart customer engagement system. The application uses Secured Card Payment, integrating best in class secured card readers and ultimate tracking technology.

Do you have an E-commerce application development project in place? We are here to assist you! Please contact us so that we can respond to you quickly.

• Phone: +84 24 3202 9222
• Email: [email protected]
• Website: https://savvycomsoftware.com/
• Head Office: 12th floor, Viet A Tower, Duy Tan Street, Hanoi, Vietnam