Amazon sales trends 2024: tips for online retailers

Every year at the turn of the year, the online retailer community is dedicated to the latest trends and developments on Amazon and in e-commerce. Amazon Repricing We will also be discussed again. But this year is particularly exciting. The current AI revolution has already had a significant impact on the mail-order business, and in 2024 marketplace sellers can look forward to many innovations that will permanently change their everyday working lives.

Although artificial intelligence has significantly influenced discussions over the past year, changes are also underway in other areas that Amazon retailers should not overlook. niche markets, Social Commerce, new advertising formats, and Ultrafast Delivery Although they do not have much influence on society, they play an important role in customer acquisition and experience.

E-commerce trends: 2024 promises excitement

Some e-commerce trends are also on the horizon in 2024. Let's look to the future and set some best practices for online retailers to make 2024 a successful year.

1. Micro brands and niche markets

We have already described the high level of competitive pressure on Amazon in detail. As a platform, the marketplace works extremely well and has hundreds of millions of customers worldwide, which in turn attracts many manufacturers, brand owners and retailers. In recent years, strong competition has increasingly led sellers of retail goods to focus on their own brands. Many experts expect this development to continue in 2024.

Retailers will increasingly focus on niche markets where competitive pressure is lower than in established markets. This can have a number of benefits:

· It is often easier to position yourself in a new market than to assert yourself in an already saturated market.

· Customers appreciate unique products that are different from others.

· Specialized retailers can respond more individually to customer requirements and invest more energy in product development.

However, marketplace sellers shouldn't jump on this bandwagon thoughtlessly. The key to success lies not in mass-produced goods, but in a deep understanding of customer needs and targeted product development.

The retail store discovers Amazon

2024 will also be the year of retail on Amazon. It wasn't long ago that luxury brands such as Dior or Chanel opened official Amazon stores. There are also Amazon's efforts to establish itself in luxury retail. The “luxury stores” have been introduced but have not yet had the hoped-for success.

First, major retail brands in particular will benefit from this Amazon trend. In the coming years, it will be clear whether the business is profitable and whether the broad mass of retail trade will also follow suit.

The traditional online retailer could be skeptical of this change, as competition in certain segments will increase, which is likely to lead to increasing advertising spending. It is therefore particularly important to keep an eye on the situation and to optimize your own processes and listings, also with the help of AI.

2. Augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence

VR, AR and AI were top topics in 2023 and will also be relevant in 2024. Developments have reached a rapid pace and have the potential to revolutionize e-commerce.

Listing optimization with large language models and more

Optimizing product listings on Amazon to suit the target group is decisive for the conversion rate and ultimately for sales and profit. The introduction of large language models such as ChatGPT has simplified and accelerated the creation of such listings. Tools based on ChatGPT, DALL-E, or Midjourney provide a user interface to text and images in seconds

generate.

There is no question whether online retailers should use such tools. However, they cannot replace human judgment. The generated content must be checked and adapted in order to achieve a good result and comply with legal requirements. AI tools can be sources of ideas, but not provide the end result.

AI tools for inventory management, customer service, and personalized shopping experiences

Artificial intelligence will reach all areas of online retail, in particular inventory management, customer service and personalized shopping experiences. Chatbots can use large language models to make interactions more natural and solve routine support tasks independently.

This relief for customer service makes it possible to respond individually to customer inquiries. Large retailers have financial resources to develop their own solutions, while smaller retailers are more likely to rely on “ready-made” third-party software.

Augmented and virtual reality

Virtual and augmented reality have the potential to revolutionize online shopping by making it possible to touch, try on and interact. Although these technologies are still in their infancy, online retailers should keep an eye on developments in this area to remain competitive.

Voice commerce

With the development of voice-controlled assistants such as alexa VoiceCommerce is expected to increase. Retailers must adjust their product descriptions to meet the changing search queries.

3. Social media and influencer marketing

Social Commerce

With TikTok Shop, Amazon has won a new competitor. The pressure to innovate is already having an effect: Amazon and meta have entered into a partnership that allows in-app purchases on Facebook and Instagram. Amazon is also trying to gain a foothold in social commerce with Amazon Live and Amazon Inspire.

Amazon Live and Amazon Inspire are innovative features that improve and expand the shopping experience on Amazon:

Amazon Live is a platform where products are presented in live streams by real people. Both Amazon itself and influencers and brands can produce videos. There is a chat function to talk directly with potential customers

to interact and answer questions. It is also possible to advertise.

Amazon Inspire is integrated directly into the Amazon app. In a feed, products are presented in videos and images. Customers can read reviews and add them to the shopping cart with a simple click.

These new functions show that in future it will increasingly be the task of brands to develop and implement sales strategies for external channels such as social media platforms.

The end of third-party cookies:

The end of third-party cookies is a development that has been foreseeable for some time. After Apple introduced a feature to block third-party cookies on iPhones, Google is now also testing corresponding features in the Chrome browser. In 2024, it will therefore be crucial how well retailers can adapt to these developments, especially if they Omnichannel campaigns carry out. The measurability and the resulting decision as to how much should be invested in a particular channel have yet to be tested and implemented.

First-party data will therefore become more important as companies have direct access to their customers' data. For Amazon retailers, this can be his opportunity, as they can access one of the largest data sets in e-commerce. Strategic partnerships, such as the one between Amazon and meta show that industry leaders are starting to combine their advantages. However, it will be necessary to test and optimize this new advertising landscape for each online retailer's specific situation.

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