Trending Topic: #E-Commerce #ThinkBIG

As the world continues to adjust to the new norm, E-Commerce remains on a steady rise. E-Commerce is the practice of electronically buying or selling merchandise over the internet. As the E-Commerce industry continues to grow, so does its use of Big Data. Now that much of the world solely depends on all things digital, according to an Article by Summa Linguae there are 7 Trends that we will continue in the future of E-Commerce’s use of Big Data. (https://summalinguae.com/e-commerce/big-data-trends-for-e-commerce/)

According to Technopedia, big data refers to the process that is used when traditional data mining and handling techniques cannot uncover the insights and meaning of underlying data. (https://www.techopedia.com/definition/27745/big-data ) What is considered big data? Big data is any data that is large in enough volume that a RDBMS (Relational Database Management System) cannot store it. Three types of data used in big data are structed, unstructured and semi-structed data.

Now, that we know what Big Data is, let’s get into the 7 E-Commerce trends that rely on Big Data.

First, we have, Deeper Insights. As the world of data science continues to grow, data scientists can continue to dive “deeper” into a company’s actions to provide insight and help the business develop. Insights can be from the company’s website and even their social media. Deeper insights can potentially lead to better business decisions. For example, on Company C’s Instagram page, they upload photos of their products. The company can then gather data from the number of likes and comments of each photo and then focus their advertising and promotions based on the trends they see from that information.

Next, there is Enhanced Analytics. Websites like Google and Affirm have plugins on their sites for Enhanced Analytics. For example, EEC (Enhanced Ecommerce) is a Google Analytics plug-in which gives better insights on shopping behaviors of customers. According to the article, “the volume of data is expected to rise and be able to connect to 75 billion connected devices by 2025”. (https://summalinguae.com/e-commerce/big-data-trends-for-e-commerce/) This will increase the amount of available market insights, make businesses efforts more effective, and allow the customers to adapt to the website.

Then there is Greater Automation. As we start to see E-Commerce and big data industries grow, the use of automatic equipment for customer service and production process will become necessary. To ensure efficient security and speed, there will be an Improved Infrastructure as the demand for data analytics continues to rise. Per the International Data Corporation, the next cloud computing infrastructure will be large enough to manage tons of data and will be able to process the data in a little amount of time. (https://summalinguae.com/e-commerce/big-data-trends-for-e-commerce/)

Data analytics for e-commerce can also be useful for Precision Targeted Marketing. For example, companies are now focusing on sending promotions to potential customers based on their interest in certain products. From personal experience, I love purchasing shoes. I regularly receive coupons and emails about items that I have shown interest in while visiting an e-commerce website, just from clicking on a shoe or adding it to my cart. There are times where I may receive an email for related products as well. Sometimes the emails are custom and made just for me! I even see sales ads from the company if I am scrolling on Facebook or Instagram. If a business is looking for ways to get smart about sales and marketing, this a trend they should follow.

Moreover, since E-Commerce Businesses rely on analytics it makes sense that security will need to be extra tight to avoid any types of data breaches, thefts or cyberattacks, so the Strengthening of Data Security will become important to these businesses who are e-commerce based. According to Summa Linguae, these organizations will use this to attract customers by showing them their reputation for data protection and providing customer with control over their data. (https://summalinguae.com/e-commerce/big-data-trends-for-e-commerce/). An investment in data security will also show the customer that their information is protected.

Like Precision Targeted Marketing, e-commerce businesses can also use analytics for Personalized Shopping. Personalized shopping can make ordering online user-friendly for the customer. This will make the website user friendly which will continue to bring customers back. For instance, Amazon is an E-Commerce Business that utilizes personal shopping features. When their app opens, the main page displays items that are like products that have been previously purchased.

We can conclude that for these 7 trends can help an E-Commerce business to thrive. At Bear Cognition we make analysis that helps businesses grow and develop seamlessly. We provide e-commerce focused reporting tools and applications to enhance your company's operations. If you are looking to help your business grow by using actionable business insights, contact us today!