Ecommerce: The trends to watch out for in 2022
The e-commerce segment has been witnessing a good growth over the last few years and has been showing no signs of slowing down in India. The pandemic further brought fundamental and long-term changes in the way people shop and make their purchase decisions. It has accelerated the industry’s growth in the country as historically offline shoppers also downloaded ecommerce apps onto their phones to shop from within the safety of their four walls. The past year and a half has brought millions of new e-commerce users, including from smaller cities and towns who now are comfortable with buying online. The industry has witnessed an uptick of 77% between 2020 and 2021 and Tier II, III cities are transacting more than ever, said a recent report by Bobble AI. This trend has pushed e-commerce platforms to embrace a wide range of regional brands and local sellers, which offer a compelling value proposition to consumers. With increasing internet penetration, e-commerce players are expecting new growth from Tier II, III and beyond, which will cumulatively contribute to $150 billion of e-commerce as per RedSeer Consulting’s report. The Indian market is expected to surpass the US to become the second-largest e-commerce market in the world by 2034, revealed another report. It is poised to reach US$99 billion by 2024 from US$30 billion in 2019, expanding at a 27% CAGR, with grocery and fashion becoming the key drivers of this incremental growth.
38 Digital Marketing Trends You Can’t Ignore in 2022
At one time, artificial intelligence, data-driven marketing and voice search engine optimization (VSEO) were ambitious concepts bordering on the ridiculous. Today, these are some of the top digital marketing trends. Apart from this, other trends are programmatic advertising, conversational marketing, usage of chatbots, personalization, video marketing, social messaging apps, visual search, live stream shopping, voice search, social media stories, interactive content, AR & immersive technologies, augmented analytics, geo-fencing, blockchain applications, quantum computing, SERP Position Zero (A page that receives a featured snippet), 5G, green marketing, first-party cookies, creator economy, podcasts, IoT advertising, alternate search engines.
Top Tech trends to watch out or in 2022
Among the trends that we see in technology are automation technology like self-driving vehicles, smart homes. Metaverse refers to a collection of shared online worlds in which physical, augmented, and virtual reality converge. Some tech CEOs are betting on Metaverse as being the successor to the mobile internet. Early builders of the metaverse, including NFT artists, musicians, and crypto-native companies, are investing in digital pieces of land in popular virtual worlds. Cyber AI – Artificial intelligence’s ability to learn and detect novel patterns can accelerate detection, containment and response, easing the burden on security operations centre analysts and allowing them to be proactive. This can help in reducing cybercrime. Blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies (DLT) are changing the nature of doing business and helping companies reimagine how they manage tangible and digital assets. Connectivity, cloud tech, clean tech are others. Propelled by AI, automation and DNA sequencing, the bio revolution promises the development of gene-therapies, hyper-personalised medicines and genetics-based guidance on food and exercise.
Trends that will shape cybersecurity threat landscape in 2022
2021 saw cyberattacks increasing not just in size and scale, but also in sophistication. In fact, according to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), around 12.1 lakh cybersecurity incidents were observed till October 2021 in India. Among the trends that will shape cybercrime threats are the rise of digital empathy – Digital empathy involves thinking about the ways in which people behave and engage with technology. By applying empathy to digital solutions, we can make these solutions more inclusive. In cybersecurity, that means building tools that accommodate more diversity with respect to people. The Zero Trust journey is becoming increasingly important – Zero Trust is an “assume breach” security posture with strong identity authentication everywhere. As we look past the pandemic to a time when workforces and budgets rebound, Zero Trust will become the biggest area of investment for cybersecurity. Diversity of data matters – Microsoft tracks over 24 trillion daily signals from a diverse set of products, services, and feeds around the globe. In 2021, the diversity of data allowed us to understand Covid-19 themed attacks in a broader context. The resiliency of a business is tied to its cyber resilience. A greater focus on integrated security.
TikTok dethrones Google to become most popular website
Popular short video-sharing platform TikTok has surpassed tech giant Google as the most popular website of the year, says a report. According to a report by IT security company Cloudflare, the viral video app gets more hits than the US-based search engine, reports BBC. The rankings show that TikTok knocked Google off the top spot in February, March and June this year, and has held the number one position since August. In 2020, Google was first, and a number of other sites, including TikTok, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Netflix, were all in the top 10. As per the report, it is believed one of the reasons for the surge in Tiktok’s popularity is because of the Covid-19 pandemic, as lockdowns meant people were stuck at home and looking for entertainment.
Metaverse could open a world of possibilities to advertisers
One cannot open social media without seeing the word ‘Metaverse’ appear everywhere. It seems to pop up with the same feverish frequency as an Akshay Kumar movie. And it can no longer be dismissed as jargon spouted by tech-loving geeks to appear modern and ‘with it’. The Metaverse is a looming reality. One way of defining it could be to say “virtual reality on steroids”. The most exciting thing about the Metaverse is the creative opportunities it offers. A quick, cursory Google search will throw up examples of how brands like Warner, Hyundai and Gucci have built virtual worlds. Companies like Coca-Cola are selling NFTs — non-fungible tokens bought and sold on blockchain technology that allow people to own digital stuff like images or videos.
ONDC-based e-commerce applications in the next two years
The Centre expects a multitude of localized e-commerce applications in Indian languages — coming up in the next two years using the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) architecture — to standardize on-boarding of retailers on digital commerce platforms, thus curbing e-commerce monopolies. ONDC, pioneered by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), aims to go beyond the current digital commerce model. It will allow the buyer and seller to do business irrespective of the platforms they use. Like Unified Payment Interface (UPI) has disrupted the digital payments domain, ONDC seeks to achieve something similar for e-commerce. It aims to democratize digital commerce, moving it from platform-centric models like Amazon and Flipkart to an open-network. It will empower merchants and consumers by breaking silos to form a single network to drive innovation and scale, transforming all businesses from retail goods, food to mobility. Once a retailer lists its products or services using the ONDC’s open protocol, the business can be discovered by consumers on e-commerce platforms that follow the same protocol.
