E-commerce and surroundings – brief glimpse into trends for 2020.

A new year always brings new opportunities – while we cannot predict the future, we for sure must look at trends and make assumptions consider them for predictions around relevant topics in today’s business world.

Earth First! Ecological awareness – dare to care.

Indifferent to your personal beliefs and thoughts around climate change, we cannot deny that in today’s world this is an important topic which will be screamed out loud in 2020 and beyond: we are seeing and living through a shift towards greener living, companies and people alike are attempting to reduce their carbon footprint, new environmental laws are being introduced worldwide and the younger generations are now considering “how green a company is” when calibrating a product’s quality.

 

But what does this have to do with e-commerce, which is not involved directly in selling eco-commodities? Everything.

Below you will find 5 simple ways to make your e-commerce eco-friendly (and more attractive to likely buyers who will judge you on your impact to our planet!):

  • Packaging is now a top concern – less plastic, more recycled cardboard! We, as a society, are becoming scared by plastic pollution and looking for remedies everywhere for it. Changing your packaging materials won’t save the world or it’s climate, but it is a first step in a great direction.
  • Make your Corporate Social Responsibility values a major part of your unique selling proposition. Don’t hug trees but plant them – every item / $ spent in your e-store will increase a dedicated fund to forest your local area. Take it a step further and organize a tree-planting drive. This can show love for your community and desire to build strength in it – which can only result in strong appeal for your customers!
  • Does your e-shop cross-sell products with eco-friendly alternatives? It is easy to manage your cross and up selling in stores based on Magento 2 – believe us, at ORBA we spent over 95k working hours with this e-commerce platform. Create a vegan or Earth-friendly alternative and upsell it! People will pay more for recycled if they see you believe in the cause![DH1] 
  • While we are at it, why not create a new set of attributes for your products? i.e.: “ecological impact”? Some food manufacturers today are starting to list carbon footprint or ecological impact in food production (see Quorn veggie meat’s new labelling[DH2] ). This is the beginning of a huge trend  by all predictions – lead the charge!
  • Show how to reduce carbon footprint by educating your customers in how to use your products more efficiently, especially if you are dealing with electronic devices. Underline cost saving benefits as well – promotions can add up! Why not set up a return for recycling program in exchange for a future discount?

Toss a coin to your audience and make them fans

Cashing in on pop culture is not new. However, there are multiple new globally sweeping trends which everyone can use to engage their public, their customers or their peers even more. Today’s big topic may be The Witcher Netflix series – get our reference for the coin? Thought so! Now we have broken the ice and have a conversation starter. Don’t be afraid to cash in on today’s trending topic, icon, meme or challenge to increase brand awareness – and you can do all of it without needing deep pockets. In fact, you can spend next to nothing to achieve this. No license from the author, no sponsorship for tv series? Where is the catch?! No catch, just a different scale and approach – buy some paper books and make them a prize in your survey / quiz / contest, then post it on your social media account and count your shares and likes!

 

If books are better for dust and not for you, you can always summon your followers or gain new ones by calling for action in real time. Enough with these empty phrases. Just announce a competition in which “best Witcher or Witcher’s inspired cosplay published with photo in this tread will have a chance to win…” Sit down and see the responses. Trend it on social media for a small cost and you are doubly winning.

 

Almost every kind of online shop can adopt these tactics – thanks to “halo effect” you will be part of the buzz around The Witcher’s fandom. Let someone else make the marketing campaigns (and spend a ton of money in the process) to promote it, you just use name of the bestselling book series to attract and engage your target group and a lot of potential fans, completely unrelated to your business but eager to get the prize.

 

If you can’t predict trends, make them! Do you have interesting ideas and recognitions as well? Share them with us in the comments, like original post and follow us on LinkedIn or Facebook to win a complete set of books (you can chose the language!), I bet you will not guess which ones… ?