The Covid-19 pandemic had an important impact on consumers’ habits by accelerating the shift from physical to e-commerce. Today, the percentage of consumers who buy more than 50% or more of their total shopping online has increased dramatically in the three largest e-commerce markets in Europe: France, Germany and the UK

Coronavirus: growth lever for e-commerce

This large-scale health crisis has had a major impact on traditional European retailers. Multiple measures such as  social distancing, containment were put in place by various governments to combat the spread of the virus. As a result, a lot of consumers were hindered or even excluded from going to stores. But as the spread of the virus begin to slow down, will consumer habits remain the same?

E-commerce would maintain its growth after the health crisis

With the increasing popularity of e-commerce sites, more and more people are turning to online shopping. This increase in online shopping can be attributed to several factors. Websites have become more user-friendly for customers. As a result, the confidence of Internet users has improved, with a better experience on the websites they visit.       

No more queuing at the checkout, no need to go to shopping areas that are often crowded or with hard to find parking spaces. We can receive in one click and very quickly (the next day with Amazon, widely used in France) our purchases. Returns are also simplified for even more flexibility.

Experts predict that the impact of the coronavirus will not only be a short-term boost for e-commerce in France, but will remain there even after Covid-19. Indeed, people may have become accustomed to the convenience and comfort offered by home ordering and delivery, as well as contactless online payments, which may lead to a permanent change in behavior in favor of e-commerce purchases.

With the advancement of technology, e-commerce seems to have fully integrated itself into the new habits of consumers, improving their shopping experience and creating a lasting relationship with them.

Source: www.oberlo.fr

Today, 94% of first impressions are design-related. No matter how valuable your website or product is, it will be rendered powerless if it is joined into a poor or outdated design. This is why UX design trends must be continuously monitored, and the best of experience must be provided to convert first visitors into regular Indeed, User experience design play an essential part into the way your customer is perceiving your brand.

To make your web, app and product UX look like the more efficient possible, you need to follow the latest UX trends with attention since they are constantly changing. Here is a shorten list of all the future UX design trends which will probably influence the market in 2022:

1. Neumorphism

"Neumorphsim is an in-between version of skeumorphism and flat design and is gaining traction for its subtle yet innovative look. In this design, the user interface (UI) elements are placed behind the background, i.e., similar to the watermark setting. Once the user makes a selection, that element protrudes out and looks like it is coming out of the screen. Neomorphism is about using solid colours and the blend of right contrasts and shadowing effects.”

2. Illustrative Design

Illustrative design or vector graphics is the latest UI/UX design trend where pictures are made computer graphics ad are associated utilizing lines or curves to transform them into a identifiable shape. “More and more web designs are relying on vector artwork these days. Not only it looks sophisticated, but it also adds a unique look to the UX design. These vector images are perfect for keeping it minimalistic while conveying the message to your audience.

3. Dark mode

Dark mode or dark theme is gaining more and more success recently: it’s a colour scheme of light-on-dark, an inversion of the traditional format. Many mobile devices recently switched to support dark mode, which has proven to improve battery life. A part from the part it can save battery support it also play a part in user experience since it seems improve how people feel. Blues screen as we know it have the ability to supress the secretion of melatonin, impacting sleep. But if an app is used in dark mode, it reduces the light, and by extension the impact of the app usage on sleep and overall eye strain.

Source: www.prototypr.io

In 2021, e-commerce has continued to grow, with more and more online shoppers and e-retailers eager to meet this demand. Indeed, a lot of companies has witnessed a increase in the technologies used by e-retailers to satisfy their customers.

With the multiplication of e-commerce sites online, consumers have the luxury of being able to choose the stores they want to order from. However, the act of buying is no longer simply influenced by the product or the price, but other issues, such as the values of a brand will be taken into consideration by the customer.

Ecology for example has started to play a part since the citizens are increasingly sensitive to sustainability and ecology issues, saying they are influenced by a brand's responsibility when making a purchase. Questions such as "Where do the materials come from? What is the packaging made of? Does the e-tailer offer green delivery options?" are becoming more common. Brands are becoming more aware of this and are becoming more environmentally responsible.   It is quite possible (and desirable) that the year 2022 will be marked by new initiatives...

The subscription model is also something taken to consideration now: It's common knowledge that acquiring customers is much more expensive than retaining them. So it's not surprising that brands are getting inventive in trying to retain their customers. The rise of online shopping has allowed brands to implement a new type of loyalty program: the subscription model. The customer chooses one or more items that they consume regularly, chooses the frequency of purchase and the brand does the rest.                                                                                                                                                                Many sectors have adopted this model and it is now possible to have flowers, bottles of wine, dog toys, jewellery or fashion items delivered monthly. This has the advantage of allowing the customer to have peace of mind in knowing that they will automatically receive the products they regularly consume or to receive a surprise in their mailbox every month. For the brand, being able to accompany its customers over the long term is a golden opportunity.

Additionally, operations Experience Management is becoming a hot topic:  to face the increased competition in e-commerce, retailers need to differentiate themselves. To do so, customer experience is a key success factor. Customer experience has become a key focus for many brands who want to use it as an opportunity to outperform their competitors. And this has led brands to think about the buying journey they offer. Operations Experience Management allows brands to take back control of the buying journey from A to Z. More and more retailers are interested in the post-purchase journey and this trend is expected to continue in 2022.

In 2008, Apple introduced the Appstore while Google was developing their own android market, the Play store. These platforms gave birth to an ecosystem of tech companies and independent developers by allowing them to expand a plethora of apps, which represent today an important industry that is still steadily increasing.

It also conducted to the emergence of new careers in the digital age, one of the most well-known and trending being: “UX-UI designing”

The UX Designer is responsible for a good user experience. A good or bad UX is closely linked to the quality of the design. With this in mind, the UX Designer is responsible for applying a user-centric design that places the user's experience as the main concern, with the aim of ensuring the most positive user experience possible.

It is the ideal alternative to optimize the efficiency of a digital product/service: a website, a mobile application or a software and gain the trust and satisfaction of users.

UI design concerns the graphic environment of a user interface: typography, colors, information architecture, size and shape of UI elements, etc.

The UI designer is responsible for arranging the UI elements of a user interface according to ergonomic and graphic standards and according to the graphic charter in force.

With the emergence of e-commerce, and interactive devices, UI-UX seems to seems like a promising career option. The UX Designer profession is constantly evolving and the demand for this skill is expected to increase by about 18% in the coming years.

Source: www.esokia.com

Today, the UX landscape as we know it, is beginning to change, in no small part due to COVID. Remote jobs keep increasing, resulting in a bigger flexibility and diversity at the job level.

In the same spirit, the future of user experience is set for great changes: self-taught machines may soon be able to repeat 1000 times faster and produce considerably more variety than humans have ever processed. In such a scenario, UX design education and training will need to evolve in the next ten to twenty years.

A lot of studies demonstrate that engineering performance will step forward and that UX designers will collaborate closely with technical architects eclipsing the current marketing-driven/business agenda that is at the heart of decision-making.

In the future, UX professionals need to be aware that they should not be limited to UX, which machines may replace one day. On the contrary, they need to associate with product managers and engineers to re imagine product experiences. Indeed, understanding the user is not enough nowadays: a designer needs to be familiar with business operation and technological innovations.

Three criteria must be met for a product to be effective:

Achieve business goals, bring values to users, technogically feasable.

Source: www.prototypr.io

                                                                                                                                         Technologically feasible.

It is expected that the trends that have developed within the IT industry in recent years will continue throughout the next decade. These trends include a particular focus on developing artificial intelligence and automation, in order to keep up with the demands of a rapidly modernising world. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic can also be seen here, as faster technology is needed to cope with the demand of working remotely.

Automation, according to codequotient.com, will be one of the main drivers of developments within the IT industry. Automation is often needed in daily life, from banks to supermarkets and large businesses to small ones; improving it is thus a top priority for many. Cloud computing (and, importantly, ensuring the security of this cloud) will also continue to be a focus of the industry, as this is a large source of revenue. The stratospheric popularity of cryptocurrency will also make this an area of interest for IT specialists, as public interest in new forms of currency continues to grow. A fourth area of interest within the industry will be making technology more accessible to greater numbers of people, thereby increasing its user base and possible future interest.

2022 will be a year of continued growth and development in the industry, working to meet the needs of a changing society. These trends should be expected to continue past this year, as the demand for fast and reliable technology and storage continues to grow.

Source www.codequotient.com

Amazon Web Services, along with many other tech companies, have released their predictions for the areas of technology that they believe will prove most lucrative over the next few years. AWS currently hosts a significant portion of the internet’s cloud storage, having pioneered cloud technology for well over a decade.

AWS Vice President Werner Vogels expressed his excitement for the continuing development of technology that “augment[s] how we engage with the world”; this includes artificial intelligence and cloud storage. The five areas that AWS expects to be crucial this year are AI, cloud storage, smart spaces, sustainability, and connectivity.

AWS expects that AI will start to be used in software development, to aid and speed up the process by helping developers to create secure and reliable codes. This will be particularly useful when it comes to spotting scams and fraudulent content online, potentially protecting many internet users from exploitation. The cloud will also be a key area of development as it will aid the development of specialised technology in daily life, connecting to almost every digital device on the planet. Smart spaces could provide a solution to the difficulties faced by senior citizens in everyday life, allowing them to turn lights off and lock doors without having to move, and to keep in contact with their families without the risk of physical contact during the pandemic. Sustainability, the fourth area of development highlighted by AWS, is necessary due to the targets set by many governments for emissions reduction; technological advances are crucial to aid us in meeting those targets. The final area of focus is connectivity, trying to bring technology and the internet to everyone so that they can access its benefits. Vogels hopes that underserved communities around the world will benefit from AWS’ commitment to developing connectivity solutions.

Source: www.techhq.com

 Enterprise resource planning software has existed for many years, and is crucial for businesses of all sizes to collect and manage their data. It usually takes the form of a set of related and integrated applications, which together form a unified way of business management.

In 2018, Allied Market Research valued the ERP software market at over $35 billion dollars. The market is mainly dominated by four companies: Oracle, SAP, Sage, and Infor. As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the demand for reliable supply chains across the world has increased: this demand can be met by ERP software, and so its market value is predicted to increase massively in the years to come.

The ERP software market is able to enjoy such success through continual innovation; developers are always coming up with new ways to expediate the process of business management. This innovation, of course, is targeted at the demands of consumers. According to Market Watch, consumers are now looking for increased transparency and efficiency within business processes and help with data-driven decision-making, among other things. There has also been a notable uptick in demand from smaller businesses aiming to make their business processes easier and more transparent.

Oracle, which was founded in 1977, is perhaps the most key player within the market, offering cutting edge technology such as machine learning to businesses. The company’s set of applications helps to automate routine tasks, thereby making business processes faster and easier. AI and machine learning also play a key role in the technologies offered by other big ERP companies, such as SAP, Sage, and Infor, and are expected to continue to do so into 2022 and beyond.

Source: www.selecthub.com

Over the previous two years, the automotive industry has been plagued by supply chain issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, with essential parts such as semiconductors being in short supply and sales crashing. But as the global economy takes steps towards recovery, it seems that the outlook for the automotive industry is improving.

At the moment, the automotive industry is in a slump – consumer demand for cars has fallen as a result of pandemic restrictions, and supply chain restrictions on parts such as semiconductors are slowing down production. But as we enter the new year, forecasts by Wallenius Wilhelmsen predict a fast recovery of the industry, with global sales expected to return to pre-pandemic levels by next year.

The vehicles that appear to be most popular with consumers include SUVs and crossovers, which has been a trend seen over the last decade. Electric and other low-emissions vehicles have also seen a large uptick in sales, not least because of government targets to reduce carbon emissions. Incentives to individuals and businesses to reduce their carbon emissions are likely to cause increased growth in this area over the years to come, which will in turn help to revive the automotive industry in the years to come.

Source: www.walleniuswilhelmsen.com

Due to various lockdowns over the last two years, many people have had to work from home or rely on furlough payments for long periods of time. For some, this has allowed them much more freedom and flexibility, and enabled them to spend more time with their families. But for others, the difficulty in separating home life from work life has led to mental health difficulties.

One of the factors contributing to an increase in mental health difficulties is isolation. Naturally, it is much more difficult to feel connected to others when you don’t see them every day, and this can quickly take its toll. Many people have reported feeling insecure and stressed when they don’t have proper human interaction at work, which can then lead to more serious mental health issues. Other features of working from home include greater job insecurity, a loss of control, and an altered sleep schedule, all of which can have a large impact on one’s mental wellbeing.

Certain groups, according to studies undertaken since the beginning of the pandemic, appear to be more vulnerable to mental health difficulties. Women and mothers in particular reported greatly increased levels of stress when beginning to work from home, as well as those with less experience in working in general and those with weaker interpersonal relationships. These groups are particularly affected because they often have other responsibilities to take care of outside work, which naturally creates more stress.

However, these difficulties can be alleviated at home. Making sure that you have time to exercise after work can have a huge positive impact on your mental health, as can following a healthy diet and drinking enough water. Taking a short walk immediately before and after work can mirror the mental impact of a commute, and create a separation between one’s work and home lives. As well as this, arranging to see friends and family according to current coronavirus guidelines can help you to feel much less isolated, and create a support network for you.