What Kinds Of New Technologies Can an eCommerce Adopt?

E-commerce continues to grow in popularity across industries as the digital economy gains traction for consumers. More and more businesses that sell online face heightened competition and pressure to adapt to technology trends that impact efficiency and the customer experience. For e-commerce businesses to stay relevant in today’s digital economy, they must integrate technology into their processes to gain a competitive edge in the marketplace. Below, we have compiled a list of new technology trends for e-commerce businesses that can streamline necessary processes like data security, the customer check-out process, and identity verification. 

Data Protection and Personalization Are Taking Over The E-Commerce Industry

In this age of digital personalization where customers see a satisfactory customer experience as completely custom and tailored just for them, e-commerce companies have had to adapt to the changing landscape with a host of tools that individualize their customer journey. At the same time, companies are seeing an unprecedented amount of cyberattacks in 2022 and need to keep their AML compliance solutions strong. With so many options out there for improving your customer experience, how can you prioritize the tools you need to stay competitive in an e-commerce landscape? We’ve put together a list of essential new technologies that your e-commerce company can adopt now that can elevate your customer experience and fortify your company’s security measures.

Biometric Identity Verification to Take Your E-Commerce Security Standards to the Next Level

With the number of cybersecurity threats on the rise, e-commerce businesses must feel confident that their customers are legitimate and trustworthy. Likewise, customers want to know that their data and accounts are secure when they shop with your company. Strong and regularly-updated passwords are no longer enough to fully protect customer accounts, with multi-factor authentication becoming a necessity for individuals online.

Biometric Identity Verification is an emerging technology meant for securing customer accounts and verifying customer identity. With just a simple selfie, users can access their accounts and protect themselves and your company from identity theft attacks. Because this authentication method has data specific to one individual, it typically has more security than a password reset or multi-factor authentication. 

Convenient Mobile Checkout with Customer Data Verification

Eliminating barriers to purchase within your customer journey will ultimately result in higher sales and a greater conversion rate for your company. Mobile apps and checkout pages that automatically verify customer data remove a step in the buying process for customers, creating a more seamless and personalized customer experience. A single-step checkout experience drastically reduces cart abandonment and has a positive effect on customer experience at the end of their transaction with your company. 

Tools that offer data verification can securely save customer data to use again upon checkout, without customers having to re-enter their information into their checkout form. This simple technological improvement to your checkout experience eliminates a pain point for customers and removes a barrier to purchase that may otherwise deter a customer from clicking that checkout button. 

See our other suggestions for simplifying your check-out process with our blog post on eCommerce Tips That Will Allow You to Attract More Customers in 2021. 

API Connectivity for a Seamless User Experience 

Rarely can businesses find an all-in-one technology solution that fits all of their needs, whether that be product listings on their website or marketing tools. Consumer expectations are shifting towards convenience and native experiences that are both simple and memorable. As a result, companies benefit from API connections within their tech stacks that break down the barriers within the building blocks of their user experience. 

Application programming interfaces, or APIs, enable one of your authorized business resources to talk to another and share information between platforms. For example, you can use an API connection to create and update a product catalog for customers and connect it to your inventory management or point of sale system automatically. 

API connections can help e-commerce businesses:

• Surprise and delight new customers with memorable experiences
• Enable transactions  
• Authenticate customers who visit the platform 
• Integrate information on all business platforms for a seamless buyer journey

Using API connections can help e-commerce businesses trim their processes down for more efficiency and create customer experiences that provide a new level of convenience for the user. 

Transaction Monitoring for E-commerce Businesses 

Transaction monitoring for your customers keeps your company in compliance with the data regulations for e-commerce companies that are required by law. Considering the risks to consumers of making payments online, regulatory bodies prioritize identity verification for e-commerce companies through guidelines that companies must follow. Two of these regulations, Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering help companies perform customer due diligence (CDD), which helps connect real-world people with their online identities. With electronic transaction monitoring for your business, you can detect suspicious transactions using risk-based rules. Transaction monitoring can also spot trends in past transactions so that it can more easily spot cases of fraud. 

In the transaction monitoring process, card issuers and financial institutions monitor transactions made by customers in real-time and compare these transactions to the customer’s account information and history so that they can detect instances of fraud and suspicious activity. With transaction monitoring technology in place for your e-commerce business, you can uncover suspicious and fraudulent payments much earlier for your customers.

Highly Personalized Experiences for Customers

Personalized experiences are the new era of e-commerce, with more and more customers looking for a tailored experience that specifically targets their needs and interests. Personalization on your website can account for a decrease of 20-30% in the bounce rate on your website. Bounce rate tracks the number of visitors leaving your website after visiting only one page. 

Personalized product recommendations, dynamic content for email marketing, and retargeted advertising based on viewable website content are three powerful personalization techniques that create a tailored customer experience that allows customers to interact with relevant content based on data that the business collects. Personalization can skyrocket your website conversion rate for your business by putting the right content in front of the right eyes and recapturing those who may have visited your website and left without making a purchase. Customers are inundated with content from all over the web every day, so finding ways to personalize the marketing and website experience for your customer can differentiate you from your competitors and increase your overall sales. 

Electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC) Verification 

In an age where everyone is online and using e-commerce as an integral part of their lives, security attacks like phishing, data breaches, and identity theft occur constantly. Payment fraud has become a reality for e-commerce businesses of all industries. Juniper Research estimates that business losses from online payment fraud will exceed $206 billion between 2021 and 2025. Not only should your customers feel safe sharing their personal details with your company, but you should take measures to verify the identities of your customers and minimize the risks of fraudulent transactions. 

That’s where Electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC) verification comes into play. With eKYC verification, businesses have a range of tools to help verify identity for all of their customers quickly and easily so they don’t lose money on fraudulent payments happening on their platforms. The Know Your Customer (KYC) process helps companies not only identify their customers and check their identity but also sends a signal to their customers that their business is trustworthy and can protect the data customers share. With eKYC in place, businesses can eliminate time and costs spent on verifying customer identities and build on their customer service experience with a smooth onboarding process. 

With the competitive landscape of e-commerce in today’s economy, it’s important for companies to find solutions to two major challenges: greater security risks and malicious attacks, and a heightened expectation from consumers to see more personalization in their user experience. Companies that address these concerns with technologies that keep time and costs down will stay ahead of the competition while staying efficient with their processes.

Author Description

Susan Ranford is an expert on career coaching, business advice, and workplace rights. She has written for New York Jobs, IAmWire, and ZipJob. In her blogging and writing, she seeks to shed light on issues related to employment, business, and finance to help others understand different industries and find the right job fit for them – Strategics360.com