Online Retailers’ Key Strategies for 2019

A new study reveals the strategies of executives from top eCommerce websites that will boost their web performance this year.

Cloud service provider Yottaa conducted a survey of 141 eCommerce leaders from different niches, whose responses painted a picture of their plan of attack for 2019, for its second annual report, which was aptly titled “2019 eCommerce Leaders Survey: Site Performance & Innovation Trends.”

According to the report, online retailers are going to invest $2.6 million, on average, to optimize their eCommerce operations, with more than half of the amount going to third-party technologies.

Aside from that, they’re allotting $704,250 to the improvement of site performance as 92% of the respondents say faster sites produce higher conversion rates, while 74% of them believe that shoppers will only wait 2-3 seconds for a page to load before they head to the next website.

It’s time to replatform?

Replatforming is what the largest online retailers have in mind, according to Yottaa. They say shifting to another eCommerce platform will enable them to deliver better online experiences for their customers.

70% of those who are replatforming are looking at switching to new third-party solutions, 61% say there’s a need to evaluate their multiple third-party vendors who are doing the same thing, while 53% of them are planning to add at least three third-party solutions to their site this year.

Replatforming may be the focal point in eCommerce for 2019, but retailers have also included the following on their priority list:

• Mobile optimization (56%)
• Website speed and performance (54%)
• Personalization (51%)
• Faster checkout (49%)
• Progressive web applications (19%)
• Voice assistants, AI, SEO, etc. (8%)

Perhaps most surprising on this list is how many eCommerce businesses are still not fully mobile optimized when Mobile has been the primary shopping method for a number of years.

Do you agree that replatforming is the best approach to hitting your eCommerce goals this year? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below or head over to our Facebook group.

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