The inception of the e-commerce industry has given a paradigm shift to the way people shop. Online shopping has gained popularity due to many reasons, but one of the most prime reasons is that it offers utmost convenience and luxury to people. They have a wide variety of options to choose from and that too while sitting at home sipping their favorite drinks.

Earlier, it was limited to desktops and laptops, but the immense popularity of mobile apps have made it obligatory for the e-commerce companies to design impressive mobile apps that are more streamlined, easy-to-use, quick to load and have an unparalleled user interface. As per the report by Business Insider, in the last quarter of 2017, 44% of e-commerce transactions came from mobile apps compared to 23% from mobile web and 33% from desktops or laptops.
If you take a look around, you will find that people order their favorite products and services using their smartphones. With time, customers’ buying patterns and expectations too have changed. They, nowadays, look for the better shopping experience and quick delivery of products and services. Visually striking and appealing mobile apps offer users the best shopping time and splendid experience

Even e-commerce companies such as Amazon, are integrating various new technologies with the mobile apps to tempt customers, to improve their processes and operations, to offer quality services to the users and to get a competitive edge over others.

Let’s discuss some of the e-commerce trends we will notice in 2019 in the context of mobile apps.
Personalization
Just having a mobile app is not enough; you need to make certain that you keep trying to grab the attention of the consumers. A user might have multiple shopping apps installed in his smartphone and hence, you need to ensure that you employ some unconventional strategies to grab his attention. Offering personalized offers to the customers is one such strategy to keep his interest alive.

Personalization was not possible earlier, but now, after employing Big Data, it is possible. Big Data gives you a deep insight into consumer buying patterns, past browsing history, past purchase patterns and other crucial details that can help you to create personalized offers for him.
With Big Data Analytics, you can get detailed information about users and their preferences. This will help you to make personalized offers for them.

Search Optimization:
Search optimization is a technique that is already in practice and we will notice in the upcoming future too. Let’s understand it with an example. A customer searches for something on the mobile app, but the product is out of stock. It is not a lost opportunity for a marketer. When the product is available, the marketer can send a push notification to the customer informing about the availability.

Micro Moments are real and beneficial:
Encashing micro-moments of the customers and converting them in revenues is the new strategy that is trending in the e-commerce industry. There are many times when users turn to their mobile devices to find some information such as I want to do, I want to buy, I want to go and I want to know. Being a marketer, you need to keep a sharp eye on such details and then offer such customized notifications and offers to them to manipulate their purchase decisions. Here, brands need to ensure that they offer relevant results when customers actually want to buy products or services.

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality:
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are two technologies that will transform the shopping experience of the users. There are many giant e-commerce players have already started implementing these technologies in their mobile apps and reaping the benefits to a great extent.

IKEA, one of the most popular furniture and interior suppliers has integrated image recognition and augmented reality in their mobile apps that highlight the products to the users in their mobile apps. In addition to that, with the new image-recognition technology, they can place the furniture item in their homes to check out the placement.