6 UX design trends for e-commerce in 2022

Applications must not only be effective but also work well on every device and ensure a seamless experience. Experiences are very important nowadays. Your customers want the right experience. UX design can create this experience. The following trends will make your e-commerce business more user-friendly in 2022 and will give your customers the experience they are looking for. The 6 UX design trends for e-commerce companies in 2022 are:

Trend 1: Voice control (Voice input)

As AI speech technologies quickly become popular, people change their habits and customs. Speech interaction is therefore increasingly being used. Last year, 41% of adults and 55% of teenagers used voice control. According to the ComScore report, 50% of all searches will be spoken in 2022; and 72% of users with a voice assistant indicate that this has become a part of their lives.
 
Voice research and speech recognition are already a trend in the technology industry and are quite accurate. Due to huge investments by technology companies in speech-driven technology, this is now about 95% accurate and has firmly embedded itself in the world of technology. The next logical step is to integrate this into the e-commerce landscape and online design.
 
The use of speech can, for example, play an important role in increasing online sales. Nowadays you can order online anytime and anywhere. By making this also hands-free, this only brings more benefits. Take, for example, a plumber who is on-site at a job and who needs a certain part for his job. Of course, he can easily place his order via a mobile application, but using speech makes it a lot faster. This simple way of doing business increases the chance that he will make a purchase and will also return due to this user-friendly method.

Trend 2: Next gen chatbots and Private messaging

In recent years, companies have massively switched to the use of chatbots and private messaging. Private messaging is large nowadays, with WhatsApp, Snapchat and Facebook Messenger having a huge amount of users. Companies respond to this in through chatbots, with which they answer questions, make product recommendations and resolve questions or complaints from customers. It aren’t real people who are talking to the customers, it is AI technology that simulates a real conversation.
 
Automated live chat? This sounds great for every major e-commerce website and it is a trend that has already been picked up. This useful automation is cost-effective and increases productivity and will be a lot more advanced in 2022. Because machine learning becomes more powerful and AI will be even more humanlike.

Trend 3: Social commerce

Not so much a trend, but more a necessity for every e-commerce company. As mobile phones become safer, and thus consumer confidence increases, the number of online purchases on mobile devices will continue to rise even more after 2022.
 
This is partly due to:

• The number of optimized payment methods for mobile is increasing.
• Functionality becomes easier.
• The number of devices with the functionality to pay in an instant for products online. 

 
With mobile payments becoming simpler, safer and more familiar to consumers in 2022, the most popular mobile payment services such as Apple Pay, and PayPal will also be integrated into social media channels. Channels such as Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat, YouTube and Instagram can, therefore, be used as a sales platform. You call this social commerce. With this, e-commerce has reached a new stage and will never be the same for companies. Maybe as a company, you will no longer need a webshop?!

Trend 4: Personalized customer experience

Digital solutions are becoming increasingly personal. They have changed from a homogeneous experience to a pursuit of personalization and innovation. Designers must understand target groups that are completely different from themselves. To retain users, the user experience must be perfect, and it is necessary to conduct research into segmentation target groups and to improve product values.
 
In addition to big data, there are more individual interests. With the technical development of machine learning and AI, solutions must focus more on personalized recommendations.
 
Research organization Econsultancy has published a research report in collaboration with Sitecore: "Reinventing Commerce". This shows that companies worldwide are aware that customer-oriented entrepreneurship is now really necessary. According to nearly 80 percent of the respondents, the success of e-commerce depends on the ability to create penetrating customer experiences. Less than 40 percent actually developed a system that makes this possible. Such a system has been specially developed to support the customer journey and ensures a highly personalized shopping experience.
 
Our Artificial Intelligence partner Symson has developed some models to help with this. For example, the Dynamic Customer Profiling solution. With the Dynamic Profiling module, marketers can segment customers on an individual level based on habits, preferences, and behavior to conduct personalized campaigns and interventions that result in higher lifelong customer value. Read more about the AI solutions from Symson here.
 
Content and commerce are connected by these types of systems, whereby a company ensures itself with consistent customization, from showing relevant products to presenting offers, in the context of the individual customer journey, before, during and after the transaction is being made. 

Trend 5: Omnichannel strategy

Customers decide for themselves where, when and how they shop. Thanks to technology, they now have many different options. The buying process is no longer a straight line from A to B. Nowadays, the purchasing process leads the customer from his smartphone to his laptop, from social media to comparison sites, and ultimately to the webshop. The customer must experience a smooth, informative and pleasant experience along all these channels. An omnichannel strategy ensures this.
 
Adjust all channels to the wishes of the customer. With an omnichannel strategy, you offer your customers a consistent and seamless experience across all channels. This means that you:

• Always need to put the customer first. Keep track of the trends that exist for your client and try to understand your customers. Personalization is key!
• Offer a uniform and synchronized brand experience. The brand experience must be the same on every channel.
• Your ERP system is integrated with your webshop. This integration improves your sales process. Are your ERP system and webshop not connected? Learn more about the ERP Connector here.

 
The sooner the customer experience is aligned, the sooner you will benefit from more satisfied customers and smarter sales. Omnichannel will provide increased customer satisfaction.

Trend 6: Augmented Reality

AR technology will play a valuable role in the further introduction of 5G and create more new opportunities. People can integrate the fictional digital world through AR into the real physical world. According to the Gartner survey in 2018, around 46% of retailers plan to integrate AR or VR technology into their shopping experience by 2022.
 
For example, Nike has developed an app that can determine the correct shoe size via AR. This new Nike fit function should make it easier to choose the right size online. According to Nike, 60% of people wear footwear with the wrong shoe size. An outdated way to measure the foot is the cause of this. The new AR function of the Nike app looks at the full shape of both feet. The shoe size is calculated based on a scan that perfectly matches that of existing Nike shoes in the style that the buyer is looking for. To underline this is that the new shoe size measurement technology will soon also be used in the shops of Nike (omnichannel).
 
These trends will be very important for most e-commerce companies in 2022. Creating UX design and the ultimate experience for your customers is essential. That is why you must be able to recognize and apply changing and ongoing design trends. Now that technology and products are becoming more people-oriented, it is important to understand human behavior to be able to respond effectively to this. You will not only focus on the design on the screen but also pay attention to the design and processes outside it.
 
Although you can only focus on these trends if you have the basic UX design in order. If that is not the case, then you need to first start focusing on the basses of UX design.