Ecommerce is an industry that’s always on the cusp of a new trend. Whether it’s a new marketing channel or a payment option, there’s always something innovative happening in the space.
Take artificial intelligence (AI), for example. Many analysts consider the technology to have brought in the fourth industrial revolution — and the ecommerce industry is already seeing positive effects. From AI chatbots to search and discovery, it’s made a mark on many customer touchpoints.
So much so that brands like ThredUp have launched AI tools to improve the shopping experience. Now, buyers can upload images they find online to get the perfect match on its website. Or, if they want recommendations for specific looks, all they have to do is provide a prompt like “outfit for a summer wedding in Italy.”
Consumers expect better and better shopping experiences — and it’s up to you to deliver.
So what else are consumers expecting from ecommerce brands in 2025?
We’ve compiled all the data to help you get ahead of their expectations and digital retail trends in the industry. In this guide, you’ll learn:
- Top ecommerce consumer trends for 2025 and beyond
- What these trends mean for your business
- How you can do your own trend research to continually stay ahead of the curve
13 Consumer trends impacting ecommerce stores
↑ Back to topHere are the top thirteen ecommerce trends set to reshape the industry in the next year:
1. More boomers are spending time online
Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) are more fully accepting social media as a means to get information and engage with brands. While you may tend to think of Facebook as the go-to for older generations, a GWI report found that the number of boomers using video-based social media apps is increasing.
Even though many marketers and ecommerce store owners are focused on a Gen-Z audience, it’s time to consider boomers’ shifting online consumer habits in your campaigns. After all, this audience often has strong purchasing power — especially for higher-ticket items.
What to do: If you’re running marketing or advertising campaigns on social media, it may be time to consider these audiences and develop dedicated campaigns with messaging and creative that resonate with this generation.
2. Consumers want better and more human interactions
AI has made a significant impact on ecommerce stores. While some stores use it to analyze customer data, others use it to support customers while they’re making purchase decisions. That said, the AI pendulum keeps swinging back and forth, raising the question of whether it truly improves the customer experience.
Many consumers still hesitate to interact with brand-specific AI tools. A Qualtrics survey found this hesitation is due to:
- Poor quality of interaction
- The risk of job loss
- A preference for human interactions
To help customers, it takes more than integrating an AI chatbot. You need to consider consumer preferences and give them support options. For example, customers can be given a live agent option instead of only enabling a rule-based chatbot that gives fixed responses to specific questions.
It should be obvious that it’s not a cost-saving option — but an option that makes their lives easier. Leonie Brown, principal experience management (XM) scientist at Qualtrics, says:
“AI offers tremendous opportunities to organizations that implement it thoughtfully, but if customers detect a pure cost-saving attempt, they will leave in droves. So AI interactions must build confidence — trust from customers comes with consistency, accuracy and convenience.”
What to do: Conduct pilot programs before implementing AI in the customer journey. Let’s say you want to add AI search to your website. Test it internally first to see if it actually brings up the right products and information. Only when you’re confident of its value should you roll it out to customers.
3. Consumers would rather have better service than lower prices
Given that inflation and changing economic scales are impacting people’s buying power, that doesn’t mean customers are looking for the cheapest price every time. The Qualtrics report found that consumers rank customer support and product or service quality above pricing when making purchasing decisions.
Buyers will only gain confidence if your brand offers the right support at every touchpoint. And considering that it costs $53 to $91 to acquire just one customer these days, you need to optimize the journey.
What to do: Take a holistic approach to acquire and support customers going forward. Instead of dropping prices to attract price-sensitive customers, invest in the quality of your product. And also offer enough support to make for an enjoyable experience.
Here are a few quick tips to do that:
- Offer multiple delivery options
- Have live chat (with a real, human agent) available on your website
- Provide more detailed product information and include things like size charts
- Offer a more lenient return and exchange policy, and make it easy to understand
4. Social commerce will still reign supreme
Social commerce will continue to grow as many social media platforms are making it easier for people to shop within these apps directly, thus impacting purchase decisions. In 2023, 18.5% of total online sales came from social media platforms. And Statista forecasts that this figure could rise to 21.7% of total sales by 2028.
Of those who call themselves, “social shoppers,” six in ten have bought something from Facebook in the last 12 months and three in ten from TikTok and Instagram.
These platforms have their own in-built shop feature where ecommerce brands can host their products. Consumers don’t have to move to another site to shop. The entire purchasing experience is completed within the platform. This way, customers get what they want in a few clicks, while brands have access to a built-in audience to increase sales.
What to do: This is an excellent opportunity to optimize your social experience. If you’re already advertising or marketing your products on platforms like Facebook or TikTok, take advantage of the in-app shopping feature.
Think about the entire buying experience — from individual posts to ads. Add product tags to your content to redirect users to the shop directly. Make sure these shops include as much detail as your website does. The goal is to keep people on the platform, so treating your social account like your website would go a long way.
5. “Click-and-collect” methods are gaining steam
The “click-and-collect” model, also known as buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS), is increasing in popularity, too. Thanks to the ecommerce push during the pandemic, legacy brands have taken to online channels to get more customers.
According to a JP Morgan report, Target saw a 500% increase in drive-up sales between 2019 and 2020 (curbside pickup). Customers can place orders for free and pick them up in the local mall through contactless delivery, which also reflects the importance of omnichannel delivery.
What to do: If you have a local store offer a BOPIS option. Customers can save on shipping while likely getting their items more quickly, and you may save on logistics and processes costs while increasing in-store traffic.
You can enable it within your WooCommerce dashboard as well. You’ll just need to create Local Pickup as a shipping method, then add it to a Shipping Zone. You can make this modification under WooCommerce → Settings → Shipping → Shipping zones then click Add shipping method.
6. Live commerce could soon become a contender
Live commerce offers the perfect blend of live streaming and ecommerce. As buyers crave the “human” connection, you could adopt this to add excitement to the shopping experience.
Live commerce started in China when Alibaba launched Taobao Live. It was super successful. In 2023, 765 million people watched these streams.
In other countries like the United States, it’s still picking up steam. Companies like Poshmark and Qurate have launched their own live-streaming apps where hosts spend hours selling products. The New York Times reports that these companies are already seeing high levels of engagement, indicating potential growth.
And it makes sense. With this method, customers:
- Feel the urgency to buy
- Get detailed product demos
- Watch influencers recommend products
- Access another entertaining shopping experience
What to do: Partner with local or niche-specific influencers on social media and ask them to host a stream like this. Or invest in your own programming (even going as far as to build your own studio) and start streaming on TikTok or other platforms.
7. More consumers want short-form video content
In 2024, social media was the number one channel for product discovery. One in every four customers discover products via social media. And when you consider that most of these platforms now prioritize video content, investing in it is a wise move.
Using short-form video content:
- Allows for creative and engaging product demonstrations
- Quickly conveys your brand’s personality and values
- Increases organic reach due to their shareability
- Makes for simplified repurposing across multiple platforms
2025 is a great time to invest in this type of content to drive engagement and sales.
What to do: You can start producing videos in different ways. Here are a few that work well:
- Hire a social media video specialist to produce product videos
- Partner with influencers, creators, or customers to make user generated content
- Use shoppable videos on different channels to increase sales
Beyond social media marketing, you can make your online retailer user experience more exciting by including videos in your product listings using the Product Video for WooCommerce extension.
8. Augmented and virtual reality mimic in-store shopping
Many consumers — 51%, in fact, — say that the biggest drawback of online shopping is the inability to touch, feel, and try a product. Innovative stores are constantly looking for ways to combat this issue.
One of the best new solutions in recent memory is the use of augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR) technology. These methods bridge the gap between online and offline experiences by letting customers virtually try a product.
Ulta uses a similar technique to reduce returns and increase buyer confidence and impact shopping behaviors. The brand offers a virtual try-on tool called GLAMlab for makeup products. This is especially useful for products that have a unique or extensive color palette.
The image below demonstrates how the tech works. As you can see, it displays various skin tones and shoppers can test different foundation colors to see which ones work best.
What to do: Consider adding a virtual try-on room to your website or social app. The Arty 3D Viewer extension allows you to create a virtual showroom, where users can place 3D models of your products in pictures they’ve taken of their spaces. This is perfect for trying out furniture and other decor, for example.
9. Smart homes drive the need to optimize for voice search
When looking at consumer behavior, it’s clear that people are investing more and more in smart devices. Amazon’s Echo voice assistant is even expanding beyond the home. In 2024, roughly 18,000 people each month searched for “Echo Auto”, a tool that extends functionality into their vehicles.
Beyond help with everyday tasks, people are now using tools like Google’s voice assistant or Apple’s Siri to search for products online. As a result, your optimization work to please traditional search engines should now encompass strategies for appearing in voice results.
What to do: Start learning how to optimize your ecommerce site for voice searches and allocate a portion of your search engine marketing resources to exploring this trend.
10. More brands need to focus on sustainability
These days, consumers are showing increasing interest in sustainability practices. McKinsey research shows that companies that make ESG (environmental, social, and governance) claims tend to achieve more growth compared to those that don’t.
To succeed with this, you should take a look at the entire supply chain. Here are a few key areas of focus:
- Sustainable packaging and shipping practices
- Transparent supply chains and ethical sourcing
- Carbon-neutral or carbon-negative operations
- Circular economy initiatives, like product recycling or refurbishment programs
- Support for environmental and social causes
What to do: Develop sustainability programs and bake them into your business. Conduct an audit of your supply chain and start from there. Look for opportunities to change packaging, recycle products, or offer buy-back programs, which will also improve your brand perception.
11. Invest in building customer confidence in your brand
As the number of ecommerce brands grows, you’ll have to build a better customer journey and experience to get more customers.
A Google survey found that highly-confident customers are 18 times more likely to recommend a brand than those who aren’t confident. So, what does a confident customer look like? Confident customers tend to have:
- High category knowledge
- Relevant information
- A strong connection to the brand
It all comes down to research. If customers get the information they need and can verify it’s true on multiple channels, that’s enough to instill confidence. This results in more purchases and loyalty over time — as long as the experience matches their expectations.
What to do: Analyze the customer journey and see where you can improve the experience. If you have negative reviews due to product quality or return policies, try improving those sectors first. Also, highlight your values as a brand in everything you do. For instance, your team could volunteer to help more social initiatives or you could donate to causes and highlight those contributions on your site.
Pro tip: Collecting donations at checkout is a great way to highlight your own contributions without coming across as bragging. Plus, involving customers makes them feel more invested and increases positive feelings about their purchase. Learn more about accepting donations at ecommerce checkout.
12. Brand loyalty is fading while exploration is rising
Traditional brand loyalty, where consumers stick to one brand for as long as the product is available, is becoming less common. A McKinsey report found that 38% of U.S. consumers tried a different brand in the past three months, while 36% of them switched brands for a lower price or discount as rising costs impact consumers.
Why is this happening? It’s well worth the effort to discover specific reasons tied to your brand. You may want to personally interview customers or send out a consumer trends survey. Do your products’ value justify the prices? Are your product lines limited in variety? Something else? Usually, customers start exploring for other products as a result of:
- Increased access to information and product reviews
- Rise of comparison shopping tools and platforms
- Influence of social media and influencer marketing
- Heightened price sensitivity due to economic fluctuations
This is why ecommerce brands need to start investing in loyalty programs. These types of initiatives encourage shoppers to come back time and time again by rewarding them when they purchase from your site.
What to do: Survey your customers and get feedback on what they want. Ask them how they feel about the current brand experience and what would make consumers continue to buy from you in the near future. Use that data to develop loyalty programs and bundled offers. This will increase your customer lifetime value and average order value.
Use an extension like WooCommerce Points and Rewards to incentivize customers’ actions on your site and build loyalty. This tool enables shoppers to earn points every time they take certain actions, from purchasing products to leaving a review. Then, they can redeem those points for discounts off of future purchases, based on a conversion rate that you set.
13. Data privacy is still a concern for consumers
People are more aware than ever of the data that brands collect during their purchase journey.
A Sprout Social survey found that 63% of consumers worry about the zero-party data (information customers voluntarily share with brands) that’s collected when consumers shop with an online retailer. They’re not sure about the benefits of the data collected and how it’ll be used. They might also be concerned about potential data breaches and where that information gets leaked.
That said, it comes down to whether or not they trust your brand. HubSpot’s survey revealed that 72% of consumers are willing to provide their data if they trust the brand. Meanwhile, 55% of consumers say they’re okay with sharing this data if it’s used to offer personalized experiences — like content and offers custom-tailored to their preferences.
What to do: Use a reputable security extension like Jetpack for WooCommerce to protect your site from attacks that could lead to data breaches. Jetpack offers real-time malware scanning, brute force attack protection, downtime monitoring, real-time backups, anti-spam technology, and a website firewall.
Choose a “privacy-by-design” approach, asking for only relevant data like an email address, and track customer visits without cookies. This way, you get the data you need without compromising a customer’s trust or not complying with relevant legislation like the GDPR.
How to research consumer trends yourself
↑ Back to topNow that you know the most important ecommerce consumer trends, you also need to keep your finger on the industry’s pulse to stay ahead.
Let’s look at a few ways you can do that:
Google Trends
Google Trends is an excellent (and free) source for understanding consumer demand in various regions. Let’s say you’re selling Korean food items and wondering which product line to prioritize in the next few months.
So, you do a quick region-specific search to check its popularity. In the image below, kimchi has high demand, so importing more of these products or launching new kimchi varieties would be a better bet than Gochujang.
Suppose you notice that consumer interest spikes over specific periods. This could indicate seasonal demand and, as a result, you could plan production and marketing to take advantage of this in future seasons.
Or, if a product has slowly, but consistently, gained popularity over the past year, it might signal long-term stability. This should give you confidence to devote more resources towards developing a product line that serves that trend.
You can also see what’s trending in specific regions and capitalize on those consumer habits. In the United States, you can segment consumer trends down to individual states, or even specific cities. Let’s say you sell flavoring packets for sweet treats and are considering adding a new SKU — banana pudding — to your lineup.
The chart below shows search popularity for the term, “banana pudding”. As a result, you might focus the marketing rollout on the southeast — especially Mississippi. Meanwhile, you could find a different flavor to highlight for other regions.
The goal is to tap into these insights so you can prepare for upcoming trends and consumer behavior.
Ecommerce marketplaces
Analyzing marketplaces or third-party platforms could give you a good idea of what’s popular right now. Here are a few websites to review:
On Amazon, you can start by reviewing the Best Selling, New Releases, and Movers and Shakers categories. The last one shows you products that customers are buying most often in the past 24 hours.
Let’s say you want to see which brands and product types are moving the most in the electronics or bags categories. You can simply go to the Movers and Shakers section and scroll down to the relevant sections.
Also, check if the pricing for certain products has changed or competitors are investing in ads. It could spark a few ideas for marketing and positioning your products on these websites.
Market research websites
Look at market research websites to identify broader industry trends, too. Or, if you want in-depth product research, search for industry, brand, or product-specific reports.
Here are a few websites to start with:
While the first few give you broader and in-depth reports on the market, Exploding Topics tells you which products are seeing massive growth.
The example below shows that upholstery deodorizer has gained massive popularity in the past year. If you sell home improvement products, this could be valuable information.
You can also use this tool to search for trends or uncover the most important trends right now.
Industry publications
Ecommerce-related publications are another excellent source of data. Turning to publications like the following might be helpful:
Subscribing to these publications’ newsletters means you’ll get regular updates in your inbox. And you could also look into annual trend reports or forecasts to stay up-to-date with relevant information.
Social media platforms
Stores can use social media platforms for a lot more than marketing. They’re also helpful for monitoring what consumers are talking about and looking for. Social listening tools will compile mentions of your brand, competitors, and industry keywords so you can get a sense of the broader conversations taking place within your target audience community.
Looking at trending hashtags or videos on social platforms to see what’s in demand is helpful, too. Platforms like TikTok have a #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt hashtag that shows the different products people have bought while scrolling the For You Page (FYP).
Tap into consumer trends to improve your bottom line
↑ Back to topChasing every trend, especially those that don’t properly align with your brand mission and target market, isn’t a good idea. But you should consistently monitor trends and selectively pursue those that are a strong fit. Keeping up with the market is also a great way to make better product development decisions. Which new SKUs should you stock? What do customers actually want to see more of?
Which of these trends can you tap into in the year to come? Browse the WooCommerce Marketplace for the latest tools to help you make the most of every opportunity.
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