Stay ahead of the curve: 5 tech trends to implement in 2024

3 key takeaways

   –> Global ecommerce sales are continuing to grow.
   –> Tech to watch: AI, social and composable commerce, and data warehousing.
   –> The key to omnichannel success is integrating your tech stack.

Global ecommerce sales are set to hit $6.3 trillion by the end of this year. Despite economic uncertainty, this growth shows no sign of slowing down with numbers anticipated to climb steadily through 2027.

The market is ripe for innovation and new technologies are popping up to meet demands. Consumers are eagerly embracing these technologies–making their expectations higher than ever. They want to shop directly from their social media feeds, to purchase through voice commands, and to have personalized experiences across all channels.

To keep up, you need to ensure you’re selling in a variety of channels and smoothly moving your customers through the buyer’s journey. This strategy is also known as omnichannel commerce. The key to successful omnichannel commerce is delivering consistency across all your channels.

With so many new channels and technologies, how can you determine which are worth your investment and which are simply fads? We’ll break down the current landscape and recommend five new technologies you should consider implementing.

Embracing new technologies

It can be difficult for ecommerce businesses to stay ahead of technological advances, especially since they are already leveraging hundreds of platforms to do business. In fact, a study conducted by Okta found that companies with over 2,000 employees used on average 211 applications.

On top of that, ecommerce is becoming increasingly global. This means businesses must now contend with logistical challenges like shipping internationally, managing inventory across different regions, and adapting to local market preferences.

Navigating this rapidly evolving digital landscape requires ecommerce leaders to be agile, innovative, and customer-centric. By embracing new technologies thoughtfully and prioritizing the security and satisfaction of your customers, you can turn these challenges into opportunities to excel in the dynamic world of ecommerce.

Top 5 technologies to watch

With the plethora of new ecommerce technologies hitting the market, it can be challenging to determine which are right for your company. Luckily, we’ve done the hard part for you. These five ecommerce technologies are enhancing the ecommerce experience and resolving common issues. Discover how they can help your business.

1. AI and personalization

Personalization is no longer a bonus; it’s a necessity. However, relying on manual processes for personalization can be slow and error-prone. This is where AI comes in. AI helps tailor the shopping experience to each of your customer’s preferences. You can use these technologies to give product recommendations, create personalized emails, or even offer individualized discounts. By doing so, you’ll show your customers that you value them.

2. Social commerce

The emergence of social commerce has added a whole new dimension to online shopping. The transition from “browsing” to “buying” on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok has never been smoother.

Leveraging social commerce can complicate the management of sales channels. The good news is there’s a simple fix. When adopting these new technologies, you need to make sure they are integrated with the rest of your ecommerce platforms to maintain a consistent brand voice,ensure product information is accurate across all channels and orders are automatically fulfilled as they come in.

3. Composable commerce

Composable commerce is dismantling conventional ecommerce frameworks into modular components. This approach empowers businesses to cherry-pick various functionalities and services from different providers–tailoring a bespoke ecommerce solution to suit their unique requirements.

Composable commerce offers the agility, scalability, and rapid deployment that is crucial for enterprises seeking to thrive in today’s dynamic digital landscape. By decoupling the technology stack and allowing for integration with third-party tools, composable commerce enables businesses to stay ahead of the game and provide a smooth shopping experience across all channels.

4. Integration platforms (iPaaS)

Integration platforms are crucial for creating a truly flawless omnichannel experience. These platforms help different ecommerce technologies and systems “talk” to each other, so you can keep track of accurate inventory, sales, and customer data across your applications and automate all your ecommerce business processes for efficiency and scale. A modern iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) like Celigo can empower your business teams to create, manage, and monitor integrations from a single platform without needing to rely on IT.

5. Data warehousing

Data warehouses are the backbone of informed decision-making and strategic planning. By consolidating and analyzing datasets, businesses can extract valuable insights to enhance operational efficiency and drive growth. Implementing a data warehouse will allow you to better understand customer patterns and forecast for the future. Check out our blog to learn more about the NetSuite Analytics Warehouse.

On the horizon

If you’re ready to embrace cutting edge technologies and beat your competitors to the punch, we recommend checking out voice commerce and augmented reality. These are two technologies that are gaining momentum and could be a good fit for your business.

Voice commerce

More and more people are chatting with Alexa and Siri, and this year, voice commerce will be a big player in the ecommerce space. Customers love the convenience of being able to shop while they’re cooking or driving. It’s all about making shopping as easy as saying, “Add to cart.”

Augmented reality (AR)

AR is taking “try before you buy” to a whole new level. Whether it’s seeing how a piece of furniture looks in your living room or trying on a pair of glasses virtually, AR is enhancing the customer experience in a big way.

Engage your customers

As these technologies become more sophisticated, they will redefine what it means to offer an engaging online shopping experience. Customers are eagerly diving in and changing their buying habits, and they will soon become the norm. If you aren’t innovating and exploring these technologies, you’re getting left behind.

Once you’ve chosen the technologies that make sense for your business to adopt, you need to make sure you are integrating these technologies with the rest of your tech stack. This allows you to deliver personalized and immersive experiences across every stage of the customer journey. The Celigo platform makes this process easy and allows you to quickly integrate new technologies with the rest of your tech stack, so you can stay ahead of the curve.

Ready to dive in? Download our eBook, “The scoop on mastering ecommerce automation: Your guide to end-to-end integration,” for an in depth look at how ecommerce leaders can integrate their entire tech stack.