Ten Major eCommerce Trends To Watch In 2025

The eCommerce world is constantly evolving. There’s no guarantee that what worked yesterday will continue to work tomorrow, or even today.

As we enter 2025, expect certain trends to emerge and dominate the online retail industry.

To stay competitive, brand owners need to be informed and up to date with these latest eCommerce trends.

Based on our own experience, and the opinions voiced by numerous eCommerce thought leaders, we predict the following list of eCommerce trends will define 2025 when it’s all said and done.

10 Trends to Watch for eCommerce in 2025

Here are the top ten eCommerce trends we’re thinking about, coming into 2025.

AI

We couldn’t start any article without mentioning AI.

AI, by now, is far from a new trend. We all know the scale at which AI is taking over online content, whether by generating web and social content with LLMs or AI writing tools, or AI overviews and AI search engines changing the way we find information.

The crazy thing is, there’s still so much room to grow with AI.

AI tools are getting better every day, and consumers are slowly starting to trust AI more, after some shaky early experiences.

Expect AI to keep growing in 2025, especially for eCommerce.

It will become standard for brands to use AI in many different capacities, including:

• Creating optimized web and social copy
• Creating visuals for various marketing channels
• Personalizing product recommendations
• Answering basic questions and assisting buyers
• Optimizing inventory management, logistics, pricing
• Providing insights to boost conversion rate, retention, and other key metrics

Realistically, we’re just scratching the surface of what AI can do.

In 2025, businesses not leaning into AI will have a hard time competing with the speed and agility of those who do.

Human experiences

The second big eCommerce trend for 2025 will be a direct response to the first.

The bigger and more ubiquitous AI gets, the more people will crave for human interactions and human experiences in eCommerce.

People want to buy from other people, not from nameless, faceless robots. 

Thus, the brands that succeed will be those who embrace their human side.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t use AI in your business. There are many ways AI can provide value, as mentioned above.

But don’t become so in love with AI that you let it replace the human side of your brand.

Make sure your brand still has a human face, and a human voice, and let your customers know there is a team of real people behind the products they love.

Mobile commerce

Mobile is another trend that’s not new, but that will continue to grow and take over a larger part of the eCommerce game.

Mobile commerce has been growing steadily each year.

Worldwide, Statista estimates that $2.51 trillion, or 59% of all eCommerce sales, will be spent on mobile devices in 2025.

By the end of 2024, 77% of retail site traffic around the world came on smartphones, contributing 68% of all online shopping orders.

In the US, mobile is a little further behind, contributing approximately 45% of total retail sales.

But tentpole events such as BFCM show the potential mobile has in the US, as 57% of all Cyber Monday sales in the US ($7.6 billion in total) came on mobile.

If mobile is not a focus for you yet, it should be.

Ensure your user experience is fully optimized for mobile shoppers, reducing friction and usability issues in your conversion flow.

Invest in mobile-friendly marketing strategies, and consider launching an app, if you haven’t already, to capture more repeat traffic and more revenue on mobile.

Read more: Why Top DTC Brands Are Going All-In on Mobile Apps

Social commerce

Like with mobile, social commerce will continue to grow in 2025.

Social commerce was estimated to have generated $699.4 billion worldwide in 2024 – and experts predict that social commerce sales will top $1 trillion by 2028.

We saw social come to play in a big way in 2024 with TikTok Shop.

After first making an impact in other markets, the platform blew up in the US to drive over $600 million in monthly sales.

The outcry, particularly from eCommerce brands, influencers and content creators, when TikTok was banned (at least temporarily) in January of this year shows the impact it’s had.

Whether or not TikTok survives in the US remains to be seen, but the key takeaway shouldn’t be TikTok. 

It’s that the kind of online shopping experience that resonates with customers today is a blend of social media and eCommerce.

Just look at the rise of Shein and Temu if you want another example – two shopping apps that could be mistaken at times for social media or gaming apps.

These apps harness the power of small dopamine spikes to get shoppers coming back more often, and hanging around for longer, ultimately driving serious long-term revenue.

Focus on retention and LTV

2024 was a rocky year for many brands, as the customer acquisition landscape has become increasingly unpredictable.

Paid acquisition channels are getting more expensive, while low-cost, organic channels are harder to rely on.

Google search has been a mess for some time. Email deliverability is down. Organic social reach is down.

All this leads to rapidly rising customer acquisition costs. To offset this rise, brands need to put more focus into customer retention and LTV.

Higher retention and repeat purchase rates allow brands to weather higher CAC, and provides a safety net against the unpredictability of traditional acquisition platforms.

You need to spend less time, energy and money on finding new customers, and more on selling to your existing customers.

While brands are disappearing from Google, losing tens of thousands in revenue from the TikTok ban, and spending more on paid traffic for the same return, you’ll have a competitive advantage if most of your customers are coming back and buying again and again.

Read more: How to Boost Loyalty and Retention with a Mobile App

Ownership of data and customer interactions

In 2025, more brands will cotton on to the danger of renting your audience, and relying fully on third-party platforms for a large chunk of your sales.

Driving the bulk of your revenue from social commerce and eCommerce marketplaces leaves you vulnerable to platform risk, and gives you little ability to personalize your customer experiences.

Add in the increasing difficulty for brands in getting data from web visitors, as modern browsers cut down the effectiveness of third-party cookies.

In 2025, any brand with first-party data and ownership of their audience will have a major leg up.

Focus on building direct, owned touchpoints with your customers.

Build and grow channels like email, mobile apps and push notifications, where you don’t have to rely on a third party, and you have the ability to build real customer relationships with direct access to your audience.

Convenience becomes a non-negotiable

Modern shoppers want convenience.

They don’t just want it – they want it easy, and they want it now.

That’s why mobile shopping is rising, and cart abandonment is rising.

Shoppers want the customer experience to be frictionless. They don’t want to have to get up and switch devices, find their wallet and type in their card details, or spend time typing in their address.

With so much competition, shoppers will leave at the first sign of unnecessary friction, and buy from somewhere else.

The same applies for shipping. No one, in 2025, is waiting around for weeks for their impulse TikTok buy to show up.

They want it now.

Expect a stronger focus on speed and convenience.

Fast delivery times. Frictionless checkout processes. Customers’ info saved for quick checkout, and multiple payment options available (particularly mobile payment wallets).

If you fall short, don’t be surprised if the competition overtakes you, simply by making the customer’s life easier.

Rising demand for sustainability in eCommerce

Another growing customer trend is the desire for sustainability.

A rising number of people care about the impact their purchase has on the environment, and showing that your brand supports and cares about sustainability may positively impact your brand’s image.

According to PwC, 75-80% of consumers today are willing to pay up to 5% more for locally sourced, eco-friendly, fair trade, biodegradable or ethically sourced products.

50-55% of consumers are willing to pay 6-10% more, while 30-33% say they will pay a sustainability premium of more than 10%.

You can meet consumers’ demands (not to mention being kinder to the planet, and its inhabitants) by switching to eco-friendly packaging and sustainable sourcing and production of your products.

Sustainable business practices

Sustainability is important in more ways than eco-friendly packaging and ethical sourcing.

It’s also vital to keep overhead and operational complexity down, and maintain a sustainable business.

The unpredictability of acquisition puts brands in a risky position if they constantly need to bring in waves of new customers to stay above water.

With lower overhead, you have a better chance of weathering the storm that will inevitably come at some point in 2025.

Additionally, the leaner your business is, the faster you can adapt to market changes (which, if 2024 was anything to go by, will come thick and fast in 2025 as well).

With the help of AI to automate or speed up a lot of tasks, don’t be surprised if lean, independent brands with lower headcounts are in the best position to win in 2025.

Omnichannel brand building

There are so many more ways for customers to shop, or consume content today.

Your audience is likely on multiple social media platforms. They consume content on YouTube, podcasts on Spotify, they search on Google and with Chat GPT, and they use dozens of apps.

They use their mobile phone and smart TV at home, and their laptop during work hours.

They buy things on Amazon, from a social post, from an email or push notification, or from a Google search.

Brands need to be where their customers are. And today, your customers are everywhere.

Your brand must be too.

Build as many touchpoints as possible for your customers, to increase reach and decrease the number of ideal customers who slip through the cracks.

Let people buy from your website, social media, or mobile app.

Reach out to your audience on social, push, email and SMS.

Show up on Instagram, TikTok, and Google.

There’s more competition for attention today than ever before. More touchpoints means more shots on goal for your brand.

What eCommerce Trends Are You Betting On?

Above, we introduced ten major eCommerce trends to be aware of in 2025.

As a brand owner, you know the value of staying up to date with the latest consumer trends. But there’s no easy playbook for how to approach a new year in eCommerce, and it’s always a little like making a bet on how the year will play out.

So, what are you betting on?

Some brands are all-in on AI, or other rising tech trends such as AR (augmented reality) and voice search.

Others may be betting on mobile, social, or a return to human-focused content and human experiences.

If you’re betting on mobile, and on the importance of retention, data ownership and control over your audience, launching a mobile app is a must.

MobiLoud helps you do it by converting your website into an app, building deeper relationships with your customers, increasing AOV and LTV, and adding push notifications as an engagement channel – all for a low cost.

Learn more about how MobiLoud helps here – and if you want to explore building an app for your brand, feel free to book a free app strategy call to discuss your vision for the app and how MobiLoud can make it happen.