The ecommerce industry is always changing and this year has been no different. More than ever, merchants are creating and/or improving their ecommerce businesses to meet customers where they are. While it may seem like everything in ecommerce is evolving, we narrowed it down to the biggest trends that will affect businesses in the coming months and years.
14 Ecommerce Trends Leading the Way
We spoke with leaders in the industry about the changes this year and they had a lot to share. So, let’s explore the biggest ecommerce trends and see where things are headed.
AR enhances the reality of online shopping.
There will be a growing volume of voice search.
AI helps shops learn about shoppers.
On-site personalization uses those insights to create individualized experiences.
Big data plays a big part in creating personalized experiences.
Chatbots improve the shopping experience.
Mobile shopping is still on the move.
More ways to pay.
Headless and API-driven ecommerce allow continued innovation.
Customers respond to video.
Subscriptions keep customers coming back.
Sustainability is becoming more important.
Businesses should optimize digital strategy for conversion.
B2B is growing…and changing.
1. Augmented reality enhances the reality of online shopping.
Augmented reality (AR) has been a complete game changer for ecommerce. With this type of technology, shoppers can truly see the item they’re shopping for, which helps them make a buying decision. AR really changes the shopping experience in specific industries, such as fashion and home decor because the customer can get a better feel for the item without seeing it in-person.
In 2019, Gartner predicted that 100 million consumers will shop using AR by 2020, so it will be interesting to see how that shakes out next year.
Michael Prusich, Director of Business Development at 1Digital Agency, agrees with this prediction:
“Polls have shown some really powerful numbers in regards to AR too: 35% of people say that they would be shopping online more if they could virtually try on a product before buying it, and 22% would be less likely to visit a brick-and-mortar store if AR was available via their favorite ecommerce store. AR grants a person with the ability to not just see a 3D model of a product but lets a user see how it looks if they were actually wearing it. Some products and industries lend themself better to traditional shopping methods, but AR is going to shake things up sooner than later.”
Tessa Wuertz, Director of Marketing & Partnerships, efelle.com, also sees the potential for even smaller to midmarket businesses joining the trend:
“We are expecting a lot more businesses to utilize AR for their products and businesses — so much so that it will become more standard in ecommerce and social media platforms. We’re seeing it put to use with larger companies, but I think we’re soon going to start seeing it become mainstream for businesses of all sizes.”
2. There will be a growing volume of voice search.
Not only do more people own smart speakers, but they also rely on voice assistants to complete daily tasks. Loop Ventures forecasts that 75% of U.S. households will own a smart speaker by 2025.
As more homes adopt smart speakers, more consumers will utilize voice search to shop online, order food and organize their lives. The rise of voice search creates an opportunity for ecommerce businesses in terms of keywords and content.
David Zimmerman, Director of eCommerce Solutions, Kensium, included “more involvement of voice-enabled solutions in the commerce space with Amazon Alexa and Google Home” high on his list of 2020 trends to keep an eye on.
3. AI helps shops learn about shoppers.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning make it possible for the customer to have automated, personalized shopping experiences. AI is continuously collecting data on how a customer shops, when they buy purchases and what they’re looking for in a product or a service. It’s a piece of technology that really can’t be replicated in-store.
Ron Smith, Editor in Chief, The Digital Outdoor, emphasizes how the complexity of AI and the ability to make it more human is also increasingly important:
“People want to know that brands care about them, and AI will be programmed accordingly. We have currently seen the opposite behavior on social media, where AIs learn from humans’ more negative remarks, but it’s highly likely that consumers will crave the impact. If bots can learn how to form sentences to convey an emotion, companies can soon teach them to offer comfort and products based on customers’ moods.”
4. On-site personalization uses those insights to create individualized experiences.
Buyers of all sorts — including B2C and B2B — are looking for personalized, custom shopping experiences online. The data collected from AI is what makes it possible for a buyer to get personalized product recommendations and detailed customer service.
Implementing personalized experiences on-site or in marketing efforts has been shown to have a strong effect on revenue, with one study finding it had a 25% revenue lift for retailers scaling advanced personalization capabilities.
For further context, this accounted for 19% of participating companies while retailers that were “building basic personalization capabilities” achieved “a revenue lift of 10% or more; the retailers in this tier account for 40% of the participating companies.
Kaleigh Moore, freelance writer and ecommerce specialist, sees AI-powered personalization becoming increasingly relevant in 2020:
“As brands harness and leverage more data, they’ll be able to create incredibly relevant experiences for shoppers that feel tailor-made.”
5. Big data plays a role in creating personalized experiences.
Today, many consumers are more aware that ecommerce sites are collecting personal data, which puts them at risk. Because of this, experts have mixed feelings about the benefits of big data and how it affects the personalized shopping experience.
Luis Catter, Conversion Rate Optimization Expert at Kensium Solutions, has his own predictions for how personalization will continue to evolve alongside data concerns:
“As the tech giants continue to expand and bring more services in-house, personalization will eventually make its way to the internet of things. In addition to seeing suggestions on search engines or shopping platforms, we’ll also see them on our thermostats and our doorbell cameras. However, with some of the legislation being enacted, we’ll be able to opt out of it. This will create an interesting dichotomy — people who have ultra-personalized experiences and those who do not. This will have interesting impacts on how we as marketers are able to reach new users.”
6. Chatbots improve shopping experiences.
Chatbots interact with online shoppers much like an in-store sales associate would do. Today’s shopper wants to be able to find and buy a product in just a few clicks, and if they can’t, they get frustrated. This is where a chatbot can step in and save the sale.
Experts predict that 80% of businesses will be using chatbots in 2020.
Shane Barker, Founder and CEO of ecommerce thought leadership blog shanebarker.com/blog posits:
“Chatbots are all the rage today for customer support. However, I think they’ll drastically change the way people shop online. They’ll become one of the most important marketing tools. In the retail space, self-checkout kiosks will probably become the norm and in-store marketing will increase.”
Duran Inci, CEO of Optimum7, sees chatbots becoming increasingly personalized to improve the customer experience:
“The same way chatbots are becoming more intuitive, so do I think that personal shopping assistant bots online will become more prevalent, using previous data to help anticipate new products that you’ll like. Similar to Amazon’s suggestions for similar products.”
7. Mobile shopping is still on the move.
Mobile shopping allows customers to make purchases from anywhere, which is vital in today’s world. However, if your ecommerce site isn’t responsive on mobile or through web apps, you’ll be missing out on big opportunities. Shoppers who are mobile users want the added convenience, plus the ability to pay digitally.
In 2019, Statista estimated that by the end of 2021, 73% of ecommerce sales will take place on a mobile device.
Corey Dubeau, VP of Marketing at Northern Commerce, is one of many who see “improved quality and more mobile payment integrations” to be a harbinger of change in 2020.
8. More ways to pay.
Customers have individual needs when it comes to payment methods, but they might cancel a potential sale if they can’t pay how they want on an ecommerce website. Offering a wide variety of ways to pay is a good way to increase conversion rates on mobile devices. Plus, if customers can save their payment information on your site, they’ll be able to checkout even faster the next time they make a purchase.
Joe Chilson, Head Writer and Account Manager, 1Digital Agency sees centralization of payments also making strides in 2020:
“Think about how easy it would be to buy a product on any website if, at checkout, you could simply give them an ID unique to you. This unique ID would be for a centralized wallet service that would securely store all your payment info, shipping and billing addresses, preferences, etc. Companies like Apple and PayPal have taken shots at this in the past, but I think it could become more normalized.”
9. Headless and API-driven ecommerce allow continued innovation.
Headless commerce is a solution that allows an online store’s ecommerce platform to be completely decoupled from the frontend presentation layer.
More ecommerce businesses are adopting headless because of its flexibility on the backend, plus the added SEO, content marketing and digital experience capabilities.
LARQ Ecommerce Architect Antonio Kaleb explains: “With headless, we get more control over our content and customer journey through checkout. We had a multi-region need that was solved for with the headless BigCommerce solution, allowing us to combine all of our stores into one single domain, for which we have developed additional features.”
10. Customers respond to video.
Video proved to be a great way to engage customers in 2019, and it’s not going away anytime soon. Creating videos for your website is a great way to instantly grab and engage a customer and inform them about your product or service.
Ron Smith, Editor in Chief, The Digital Outdoor considers how video can be used to help educate customers:
“I see the use of podcasting and short video content to augment the opportunity for buyers to learn about how an ecommerce brand’s products and services provide the solution to the opportunity, challenge or problem a buyer is looking to answer. With these two forms of content development comes the technology to micro track a viewer’s engagement…”
Shane Barker further emphasizes the importance:
“The importance of videos can’t be understated. Videos can help you explain and showcase your products better than images ever can. You should consider adding videos of your products in your ecommerce store.”
11. Subscriptions keep customers coming back.
There are subscriptions of all sorts these days and their convenience is attractive for consumers. For companies, subscription services create a way to plan for inventory and sales that are already locked in.
David Zimmerman, Director of eCommerce Solutions, Kensium still predicts that “more companies will offer subscription services or monthly payment options for larger purchases” in the coming year.
12. Sustainability is becoming more important.
Consumers and businesses alike are becoming more aware of the environment. Because of this, consumers are being more conscious about where they shop and the impact it has on the environment and related effects.
One survey found that 50% of respondents wanted more sustainability in the fashion industry, and 75% wanted to see less packaging.
Many businesses are finding ways to be more eco-friendly by going paperless when possible, using biodegradable packaging, and using recyclable supplies.
13. Businesses should optimize digital strategy for conversion.
Getting potential customers to your site is one task but getting them to convert is another. In 2020, businesses are looking to improve their conversion rates by optimizing their product pages. Multi-channel selling is also another way to get conversions, whether through Facebook advertising or shopping ads on Google.
Scott Ginsberg, Head of Content, Metric Digital adds:
“More and more brands are competing for the same eyes. Facebook’s algorithm rewards video and motion-based creative that are more likely to hook your audience quickly. And customers are also more demanding, impatient and curious than ever before. Make sure you understand the ins and outs of Performance Ad Creative that doesn’t only look cool, but also drives conversions. Using those channels intelligently is the best way to make sure your brand will be uniquely positioned to stand out in the continually changing digital marketing landscape.”
14. B2B is growing…and changing.
If you were ever worried that B2B would go out of style, fear not. Global retail ecommerce sales for B2B are expected to reach $1.1 trillion in 2021, according to data from Statista.
Forrester predicts that by 2020 almost half of all adults will be Millennials, which also means an increase in Millennial B2B buyers. Both of these audiences want to be able to easily research their needs and related products without conversing with salespeople.
B2B ecommerce brands are working to meet these needs. Connie Wong, Marketing Manager, Silk Software, talks about this transition:
“The days of orders needing to be placed through fax order forms or phone calls only are shrinking. More and more businesses are beginning to see the value in servicing their customers online. By automating these tasks through their ecommerce site, teams are moving away from spending the bulk of their time on processing order entries from email spreadsheets or hard copy forms. Instead, they are shifting their focus towards what matters most: engaging with customers, providing them with an excellent customer experience, and establishing ongoing client relationships.”
Weighing Your Options: Deciding if a Trend Makes Sense for Your Business
Not every trend is worth jumping on, but which one deserves your time and effort? While some will provide a huge value-add, others might be out of touch with your particular audience or might be too costly to implement for your business to maintain a reasonable ROI.
Knowing what trends will be a good fit for you will often come down to knowing your own customers, vertical, and competitors backwards and forwards. There’s several things you can do to evaluate industry trends and make the right move for your B2B.
1. Keep track of industry influencers and publications.
Follow blogs and related news in the industry so you can stay on top of what’s happening. Start by finding influencers and publications related to your industry specifically, and then branch out into other markets to get the whole picture.
2. Absorb up-to-date industry research and trends reports.
Every industry changes at some point or another, and staying up to date via reports and data can show you where things are headed. The numbers in these reports often come from original research you can trust, instead of just following the popular word-on-the-street. Plus, when you’re regularly aware of what’s happening in your industry, you’ll grow a sense of what trends are worth the effort and what ones can wait.
3. Make the most of digital tools and analytics to assess your customers’ behavior.
Use customer data to evaluate if a trend is right for you. What do the numbers show? Many trends might work for other businesses, but you know your customers best. Consider utilizing more than one data gathering tool so you can see customer trends from different sources. Use these numbers to see the overall trends in your business. Would adopting a new trend interrupt your customer behavior?
4. Get feedback from your customers.
Don’t be afraid to ask current customers what they need. Getting feedback from current customers can give you insight into trends, and you can create more specific plans for the future. You never know, a customer might even suggest an idea you hadn’t thought of yet.
5. Observe your competitors.
Take a look at your competitors. Did they jump on a specific trend? If so, how did it work for them? Of course, you don’t have to do everything your competition is doing, but being aware is another way to measure a trend.
Conclusion
Okay, so there’s a lot of new things happening in ecommerce. Technology and people are always evolving, and since ecommerce brings it all together, we are always going to be looking toward the future. One thing is for sure, is that it’s never too late to jump right in, learn something new, and evaluate if it’s right for your business. For now, consumers are in the driver’s seats and ecommerce businesses will be customizing the journey ahead for them.
Ecommerce Trends FAQs
What is the future of ecommerce?
The future of ecommerce frequently changes. As we look ahead to the end of 2020 and into 2021, industry experts helped us outline the trends for the future of ecommerce:
AR enhances the reality of online shopping.
There will be a growing volume of voice search.
AI helps shops learn about shoppers.
On-site personalization uses those insights to create individualized experiences.
Big data plays a big part in creating personalized experiences.
Chatbots improve the shopping experience.
Mobile shopping is still on the move.
More ways to pay.
Headless and API-driven ecommerce allow continued innovation.
Customers respond to video.
Subscriptions keep customers coming back.
Sustainability is becoming more important.
Businesses should optimize digital strategy for conversion.
Google executive Prabhakar Raghavan recently had an issue with his rose bushes. His wife took a photo of the plants on her phone, uploaded the image to Google, identified the culprit and followed a link for a fungicide. Then she bought it.
A seamless transaction that didn’t involve typing into a search bar, it was a real-life test of sorts for Raghavan’s strategic vision. A senior vice president responsible for most of Google’s largest services—search, maps, advertising and more—the 61-year-old executive is determined to crack e-commerce, a market projected to hit $2.27 trillion in 2025 that the Alphabet Inc. division has tried and failed to figure out many times before.
In the past, Google has tried emulating Amazon.com Inc.’s online retail and delivery services, with little luck. Now, under Raghavan, the search giant is positioning itself as a kind of anti-Amazon, a free marketplace for merchants and Amazon rivals that’s designed to get consumers more comfortable shopping with Google.
Earlier this month, at Google’s I/O software conference, Raghavan and his deputies demonstrated new features they hope will achieve that end, including one that lets visitors use photos to search for nearby retail products or find any item in the physical world with the click of a camera. And on Tuesday, the company unveiled a feature that lets people go from merchant listings on Google search to their checkout pages in one click. Raghavan hopes the various initiatives will persuade millions of people to click buy, prompting sellers to purchase many more Google ads.
For Amazon, which built a booming business by essentially renting its digital real estate to small sellers, the risk is that Google could give those brands a pathway to thriving outside its marketplace. That in turn could force the Seattle-based company to more aggressively court sellers with discounts on fees, advertising or logistics services.
Still, Amazon remains a formidable rival, and Google confronts daunting challenges. Its renewed push into e-commerce coincides with a slowdown in online shopping as consumers revert to their pre-pandemic habits. Amazon and EBay Inc. both recently reported slowing growth and weak profit outlooks. Moreover, Google has always sought to make its technology fade into the background. Turning the site into a shopping destination risks wrecking the experience and alienating visitors. Ahead of the I/O presentation, Raghavan took pains to say shopping on Google would be “super smooth.” If the concept works as advertised, he said, shoppers won’t have to think: “‘Am I doing a search? Am I on Amazon or Google?
Raghavan is the first Google executive to oversee the technical operations behind both search and the ads divisionsince Sundar Pichai did in 2014, shortly before he became CEO. Raghavan is also one of the company’s best compensated executives, pulling down $28.6 million last year in salary and stock grants. As such, he has the clout to set an ambitious e-commerce strategy and, at least theoretically, get people who traditionally operated in silos to collaborate instead.
Those who have worked with Raghavan point to his technical mastery and operational shrewdness—an unusual combination of attributes at a company that has so often coasted on its inventions and profits. “Google is violently allergic to strategic thinking,” said Sam Ramji, a former executive who worked with Raghavan on Google’s cloud products. “He’s the man who brought strategy to Google.” Adds Martha Welsh, Google’s director of commerce strategy: “He really takes a holistic view of the business.”
Since Raghavan’s promotion in mid-2020, he has torn up Google’s e-commerce playbook, scrapping the fees the company levied for online purchases and shuttering the delivery service. He has triedpoaching merchants irritated with Amazon, reshuffled the leadership ranks, and overhauled Google’s payments operationsbydropping its banking plans and narrowing the focus. He even tasked his search division with catering to people making heady commercial decisions, like buying a home or picking a college.
“He’s willing to make bold moves,” said Bill Ready, Google’s president of commerce, who joined in 2020 as one of Raghavan’s top deputies.
Boldness is required. While Google’s advertising operation continues to print money, the model is under siege from regulators and privacy clampdowns, including Apple’s ban on targeted marketing messages. Due in part to these headwinds, the growth rate of the ad business is destined to slow, and Google isn’t the only one jumping into e-commerce to goose revenue; Meta Platforms Inc. and TikTok are as well.
Meanwhile, even as Google tries to build an online shopping destination to complement its ad business, Amazon has done the inverse: created a robust advertising operation on top of its enormous online bazaar. Google’s success is hard to gauge because it doesn’t break out e-commerce sales or retail ads. Amazon’s is easy to see; its ads business posted 23% growth in the first quarter. “That seems to be working way better for Amazon than it is for Google,” said Mike Ryan, a portfolio strategist for Smarter Ecommerce GmbH.
Raghavan has tied Google’s main revenue and profit drivers—search and ads—more tightly to its e-commerce efforts than ever before.That’s all put more pressure on him to deliver on his strategy.
Shopping Express
Google’s last big e-commerce push involved going at Amazon head-on. In 2013, Google launched Shopping Express, a delivery service with a nifty app and a promise to ship many items on the same day. Google had huge retail partners on board, including Target Corp. and Walgreens, and planned an annual subscription model a la Amazon Prime. Back then, when quick e-commerce delivery was a novelty, Google’s service looked like a natural Amazon contender.
But it never was. Shopping Express expanded to a few cities outside of the San Francisco Bay Area, but had little appeal for consumers. Google’s “Shopping” site, accessible as a tab on its homepage, aggregated listings from online retailers with paid ads at the top, but attracted relatively few visitors compared with the main search page. Former Google employees say managerial indecision and an unwillingness to invest heavily in the margin-thin business undercut the strategy. Then in 2015, Europe hit Google with a massive anti-monopoly suit that argued thesearch engine unfairly promoted its own shopping service over others. That forced the company to spin off the European business and move more cautiously.
Google brought in consultants from BCG to assess a specific e-commerce strategy, but didn’t follow the firm’s recommendations. The company shortened the delivery service’s name (to just Express) and revamped it to center on its digital voice-assistant, another Amazon competitor. That effort fizzled, too. “For the past 15 years, Google has been trying to figure out commerce,” said Rick Watson, the head of RMW Commerce Consulting. “And they’ve never really executed.”
In early 2020, Google reset its strategy. Management recruited Ready from PayPal to lead the commerce unit and realigned the search, payments and maps divisions to work more closely with his. To run that entire portfolio, Google picked Raghavan, a veteran of its enterprise division who was put in charge of ads in 2018.
Retail Leads the Online Ads Blitz
Google’s e-commerce strategy banks on getting retailers to buy more ads
Before joining Google in 2012, Raghavan spent years at tech research labs and in academia, where he became an expert on web search technologies just as they began taking off. He speaks five languages and still carries himself more like a professor than a senior executive. While discussing Google’s decision to emulate the visual, rapid-fire features of TikTok, he said, “It behooves us to also start thinking about those paradigms.” He once requested classical music to accompany his entrance onstage at an event before a staffer interceded.
“He’s always surprised when he gets more responsibility,” said Jayshree Ullal, a longtime friend who runs Arista Networks Inc. “You can never tell he’s a high-powered number-two executive at Google.”
Still, Raghavan made his e-commerce ambitions clear during the first year in his new role. Google, he told colleagues, should think of users being on “journeys”—not simply coming to Google.com for information but to research and, hopefully, buy something.
He and Ready quickly decided to pull the plug on Express. They dropped the commission Google took for sales on its properties and the fees it charged merchants to list items on its shopping site, a signal to the industry that it wanted to be an open marketplace, not a competitor. “We’re not trying to put boxes on doorsteps,” Ready explained. “What we’re trying to solve is the information part of the problem.”
By that, Ready meant making it easier for consumers to find desired products, deals or brands—even those that haven’t bought an ad. Search results now identify identify discounts and loyalty programs, while new widgets list the shipping costs and hidden fees on specific purchases. Google cut deals with Shopify Inc., Block Inc. and other commerce companies to make it more compelling for businesses to sell on Google properties.
Those features are designed for buying products like sneakers and cooking pans. But the company is also experimenting with items that aren’t on most e-commerce sites—helping consumers buy NFTs via image search or research such big-ticket purchases as real estate. The company has noticed that searchers in the market for a home, college or car will often return to Google more than 60 times with similar queries before making a decision. The idea is to customize the search experiences for these use cases in ways Google hasn’t before.
Google has already done that with certain categories, creating unique features for people searching for jobs or hotels. Companies like Yelp and the online travel industry have complained that these changes buried their sites and forced them to buy more ads to get clicks. Google’s search team has been quietly working on adding more topics. Under the project, codenamed Mercury, the search team has ceded to the advertising group such areas as “shopping, real estate, mortgages, etc,” according to a memo reviewed by Bloomberg. The authors of the document prioritized boosting traffic for merchants and creating “oh wow moments!” that would lure searchers back to Google.com and, eventually, a purchase. Google declined to comment on the project, but executives have said the ads division doesn’t influence unpaid search results.
Raghavan said the company has no plans to rival real estate brokers like Redfin. And, so far, Google has resisted using the search history of repeat visitors to tailor results. That’s largely to avoid violating people’s sense of privacy, he explained. “Can you, in these situations, offer the user more support in a long-running journey, without in any way creeping them out?” Raghavan said his teams were still exploring if they could.
Some in Silicon Valley have blasted Google for filling search results with too many ads. Raghavan said increased demand from advertisers during the pandemic probably drove the recent uptick in advertising, and he expects it to cool off amid easing restrictions on travel and events.
Early Success
There are signs that Raghavan’s strategy is starting to pay off. Earlier this year, Google revealed that e-commerce advertising was a leading contributor to a 43% bump to search revenue in 2021. Google also said last year that over a billion people shop on its properties every day, though it hasn’t updated the figure. In the fall, Morgan Stanley research showed that consumers were using Google and YouTube to research products and price-shop more often than they used Amazon, EBay or Walmart. In April, the bank reported that 59% of survey respondents who are Amazon Prime members said they started researching products on Google, up from 50% in the fall.
Are you looking to build a membership site in WordPress? Want to know which is the best WordPress membership plugin? Choosing the right membership plugin is crucial for your business because a better platform means more opportunity for growth. In this article, we will compare 5 best WordPress membership plugins to easily create paid membership websites.
What to Look for in a WordPress Membership Plugin?
There are plenty of WordPress membership plugins, but not all of them have specific features that you may need for creating your membership site.
Some of them are good for selling subscriptions on a single level while others offer more diverse membership levels and subscription management features.
Some plugins offer drip content feature which allows you to slowly release new content to a user. While others are restricted to only offering hidden content.
You will also need to figure out which payment gateways you will use. Do you want to accept credit cards only, PayPal, or both? Your membership plugin should have support for your preferred payment gateways either built-in or through an addon.
Having said that, let’s see what you will need to start a WordPress membership site.
What Do You Need to Run a WordPress Membership Site?
Membership websites are resource intensive, and choosing the wrong host can be detrimental to your overall performance. That’s why the first thing you need to do is choose the best WordPress hosting that you can afford.
If you’re on a budget, then you can start with Bluehost. Their Business Pro plan comes with a SSL Certificate which you need to securely collect payments, dedicated IP, and a dedicated support line.
If budget is not an issue, and you want the best performance, then we recommend using a managed WordPress hosting provider like WPEngine.
If you don’t already have one, then you will need to choose a domain name for your website. Here is our guide on how to pick the right domain name for your membership site.
Lastly, you will need to choose essential business plugins such as OptinMonster which helps you capture leads and boost subscriptions.
Now that we have covered what you need to start a membership site in WordPress, let’s take a look at our top WordPress membership plugins.
1. MemberPress
MemberPress is one of the most popular WordPress membership plugins. It is also the easiest to use and the most robust when it comes to features.
Pros of MemberPress WordPress Membership Plugin
Easy to Setup – MemberPress makes it simple to setup a membership website with WordPress. It can automatically setup pricing, login, account, and thank you pages for your users. Adding membership plans is also very straight forward.
Content Access Control – MemberPress comes with powerful access control, which allows you to restrict access to any content including posts, pages, categories, tags, files, etc.
Content Dripping – Content dripping allows you to show restricted content to members after a certain time. This is a very useful feature for selling online courses or learning materials.
Sell Courses – MemberPress lets you to easily create and sell online courses. It offers an interactive learning experience for users that focuses on course completion rate.
Integrations – MemberPress integrates with AWeber, MailChimp, GetResponse, and MadMimi email services. It also integrates with Amazon Web Services and BluBrry for podcast hosting.
Payment Gateways – MemberPress comes with built-in support for PayPal and Stripe payment gateways. Developer plan also adds Authorize.net support.
Cons of Using MemberPress Pro
Limited Payment Options – MemberPress only supports the three most popular payment gateways. This would be a deal breaker for site owners who live in countries not supported by these payment gateways.
Limited Integrations – While the plugin has enough support for popular services to run a membership site efficiently, it still lacks integrations with some other popular services. The plugin is easily extensible, and you can pay someone to integrate a third-party service you would like to use.
Pricing: Starting from $129 / year for the Basic plan and $249 / year for the Plus plan.
We think MemberPress is the most easy to use WordPress membership plugin for beginners. It is quick to setup with tons of powerful options.
2. LearnDash
LearnDash is a super flexible and extremely easy to use WordPress LMS plugin. It comes with advanced membership modules and tons of integrations.
Pros of Using LearnDash
Easy to Setup LearnDash is quite easy to setup and adding content to it much more simpler. It also comes with advanced tools to easily organize your membership content into levels, groups, etc.
Easy Content Restrictions LearnDash allows you to easily hide any content and restrict it to different membership groups.
Sell Courses – LearnDash allows you to easily create and sell online courses. It has advanced modules that allow you to better manage learning material than other WordPress membership plugins.
Drip Content – It comes with powerful drip content feature allowing you to roll out content to users on regular intervals or upon completion of levels.
Built-in Community Features It comes with tools to create highly engaging membership sites with quizzes, user badges, course specific forums, certificates, user profiles, etc.
Integrations & Payments LearnDash offers an amazing set of integrations and payment gateways. You can even connect it to MemberPress, WooCommerce, bbPress, Slack, etc.
Cons of Using LearnDash
Lacks some membership features – If you are trying to build a membership website without selling courses, then some of LearnDash features may not be useful to you.
Pricing: Starting from $159 for a single site license with 1 year of support and updates.
LearnDash is the perfect solution if you want to sell online courses on a paid membership website. It’s extensive set of addons and integrations allow you to build a highly-engaging platform.
3. Teachable
Teachable is an all inclusive online courses builder. It packs membership website, LMS, discussion forum, email marketing, and analytics all under one dashboard.
Pros of Using Teachable
Ease of Use Teachable is easy to set up and does not require any technical skills at all. Creating membership content is a breeze and includes built-in tools to quickly create and upload videos, text, PDF, and more.
Drip Content It includes flexible drip content feature, which allows you to roll out content based on a users’ progress or subscription level.
Built-in Engagement Features It offers discussion forums, quizzes, contact forms, certificates, and other features to boost user engagement and build powerful online communities.
Cons of Using Teachable
Not a WordPress Plugin Teachable is not available as a WordPress plugin. Instead, you can integrate it to your WordPress site by adding links or a sub-domain.
More Expensive Teachable includes everything which makes it more expensive than other WordPress membership plugins.
Pricing: Basic plan starts at $39 / month, professional $99 / month, and business $499 / month.
4. Restrict Content Pro
Restrict Content Pro is a powerful contender for the title of the best membership plugin for WordPress. It is created by same team that’s behind the popular Easy Digital Downloads and AffiliateWP plugins.
Pros of Using Restrict Content Pro
Easy to Use – Restrict Content Pro beautifully integrates with the WordPress user interface. This allows you to easily figure out how to use it.
Built-in Integrations – Unlike other membership plugins, Restrict Content Pro comes with built-in integrations that other plugins ship as paid addons. It has Stripe, PayPal, MailChimp, MailPoet, email manager, CSV export, and many more features.
Payment Gateways – Stripe, PayPal, and Braintree come as free addons. Other supported payment gateways include 2Checkout, PayPal Website Payments Pro, PayPal Express, and Stripe Checkout.
Works with Easy Digital Downloads – If you are running Easy Digital Downloads to sell digital products, then Restrict Content Pro is the perfect companion for that.
Excellent Support – There is extensive free documentation available for all users. You also get professional support by email with very fast response times.
Cons of Using Restrict Content Pro
Fewer Integrations – It has fewer integrations with third party services such as email service providers than some other plugins on this list.
Pricing: $99 with 12 addons and single site license, $149 for 5 sites, and $249 for all addons and unlimited sites. There is also a $499 lifetime plan.
We found Restrict Content Pro to be one of the most easy to use membership plugin. It is also developer friendly, and comes with a great set of features that are perfect for all kind of membership websites.
5. S2Member
S2Member is a popular free WordPress membership plugin with pro version available as well. It has been around for quite a while and has a devoted userbase.
Pros of Using S2Member WordPress Membership Plugin
Free Base Plugin – The s2Member base plugin is free. Anyone can download and give it a try. It is limited in terms of features and support but gives you a good starting point.
Content Dripping – S2Member Pro comes with content drip feature.
Payment Gateways – The free version supports PayPal. Pro version of the plugin supports Stripe and Authorize.net as well.
Integrations – Works with MailChimp, bbPress and BuddyPress.
Documentation & Support – S2Member has an extensive knowledgebase available to all. Pro users also get email based support.
Cons of Using S2Member WordPress Membership Plugin
Not very user-friendly – We found s2Member to be a little more difficult to use than other membership plugins.
Free Version Limitations – Free version only supports PayPal, limits to only 4 membership levels, and does not have drip content feature.
Pricing: The base plugin is free, then Pro version for a single site license costs $89 USD. For unlimited sites pro version costs $189 USD.
Conclusion:
We believe that MemberPress is the best option for WordPress membership plugin. It has all the features that you would need with great documentation and support.
If you want something simple and flexible, then Restrict Content Pro is a great option. The team behind has a proven track record for producing excellent products.
If you want to sell courses on your membership website, then we recommend using LearnDash, it comes with powerful features to create and sell courses online.
We hope this article helped you find the best WordPress membership plugin for your site. You may also want to see our step by step WordPress SEO guide for beginners.
Are you a business owner with a modest marketing budget? Here’s a great content marketing idea that doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket — gathering more customer reviews.
Yes, you read it right. Online customer reviews can become excellent marketing content, especially for small/medium businesses without a huge marketing budget.
According to Brightlocal, 87% of customers read online reviews for local businesses before making a purchase decision. Customer reviews provide strong social proof for the quality of your products/services. They also help you with search rankings and content marketing.
If you don’t have enough customer reviews, it’s the right time to start. Let’s look at how to get reviews for your business and use them effectively in your content marketing strategy.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
How To Get Business Reviews
Using Customer Reviews for Content Marketing
Turning Negative Feedback Into Positive Content
Final Thoughts: How To Get Reviews for Your Business’ Marketing
How To Get Business Reviews
Google My Business
Amazon customer reviews
Business review websites like Yelp
Social media
Website elements
Email campaigns
With the e-commerce boom, reviews are prevalent online. There are several online platforms for you to garner customer reviews. Let’s have a look at a few major platforms.
1. Google My Business
The Future Shopper Report 2020 showed that 48% of product searches started with search engines, mainly Google. Hence, Google is a great place to start collecting online reviews for your business.
Google My Business (GMB) helps you create a business profile on Google and gather customer reviews. First, you need to set up an account on GMB and verify your business. Once you verify your business on Google, it will start appearing on Google search results.
Some advantages of using Google reviews are:
Google has over 270 million unique visitors, which gives you immense visibility
Reviews on Google help you improve your search engine rankings
Google reviews appear on search results and Google maps
Positive reviews on Google will boost your online reputation
2. Amazon Customer Reviews
If you sell products on Amazon, you already have an ecosystem to gather reviews. According to Wunderman Thompson Commerce, 63% of online shoppers start their product search on Amazon. Hence, Amazon reviews are highly influential.
Amazon’s review system has evolved during the past few decades. And since Amazon customers are trained to leave a review, it’s a great platform for you to get reviews for your business.
3. Business Review Websites
Besides Google and Amazon, there are several online platforms dedicated to business reviews. If you want to gather more online customer reviews, you should be active on these platforms.
Most review websites have a dedicated page for every business. You should claim your business page and nurture it to gather reviews.
Yelp is one of the most popular business review websites. It has 224 million reviews as of December 2020. You should also try platforms like Better Business Bureau and Trustpilot.
While it’s great to have multiple reviews across different platforms, you could also concentrate on a few niche review platforms specific to your business. These super-focused platforms help you get reviews from your loyal customers.
Here are a few popular niche review platforms you could try:
Catering Services: Delivery.com, Gig Salad
Home Services: Angie’s List, Houzz, Networx
Travel, Hospitality: Tripadvisor, Expedia
Restaurants: Zomato, OpenTable
4. Social Media
People spend an average of 2 hours 25 minutes on social media. Hence, social media is a great way to get reviews for your business. Your business pages on social media are a great place to engage your customers and collect their feedback.
You should keep posting on your social handles and closely engage with customers. Pay attention to customers’ comments on your posts.
You’ll be able to turn some of them into reviews. Customer reviews on social media might also appear on search engine results pages, helping you drive traffic to your website.
5. Website Elements To Collect Reviews
If you have an online store, your website is a great channel to collect customer feedback. With a few tweaks to your website, you’ll be able to gather a lot of customer reviews.
Here are a few things to try on your website to gather reviews:
Show a banner/popup after the customer has finished a purchase
Display a review request whenever the customer completes a download
Add links to various review platforms on your website
Place a call to action button to gather Google reviews for your business
Add widgets of popular review sites on your product pages
6. Email Campaigns
You can use email campaigns to encourage customers to write reviews. Here are a few techniques businesses use to gather reviews through emails.
Send a review link along with post-purchase ‘thank you’ emails
Send a review link on every email in your email marketing campaign
Send random review requests to your loyal customers
Use email automation to seek reviews from your customers
It’s also a great idea to include a review link in the business’s email signature. That way, every mail you send becomes a chance to collect reviews.
Using Customer Reviews for Content Marketing
People tend to trust other people’s opinions rather than the claims made by a business. That’s why customer reviews have the potential to become powerful marketing content.
But, if you aren’t using them in your content marketing, you are missing out on a big opportunity. Here’s how you can turn your reviews into excellent marketing content.
Create Content From Customer Reviews
Customer reviews are mostly in the form of text. To use them in your marketing campaigns, you should convert them into image and video content. According to a 2021 survey by Venngage, 86% of marketers believe visual content is crucial in their marketing.
You can be very innovative with your customer reviews and create stunning marketing content out of them.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Create a collage of your customer’s reviews
Make a short video featuring glowing reviews
Create posters featuring happy customers and their reviews
Create GIFs from entertaining customer reviews
Make case studies out of reviews
Create quotes from customer reviews
You don’t need a big graphics design team to create eye-catchy content from reviews. Here are a few online tools that provide templates to create content from customer reviews:
Canva
Pixelied
Promo
Fotor
Places Where You Can Use Customer Reviews
Once you have turned your customer reviews into stunning graphics, use them on various marketing channels. You should create a content calendar around your customer reviews. It should include where and when you’ll use them.
On that note, we suggest:
Posting customer reviews as videos on social media platforms
Creating posters from reviews and using them in email campaigns
Making a testimonial section on your home/product pages
Using visual content created from reviews in paid advertising
Writing case studies from reviews and using them on your blog
Turning Negative Feedback Into Positive Content
When you open yourself to customer feedback, you should be prepared to receive some negative reviews. Customer complaints aren’t always bad. Some amount of negative feedback will make your brand look legitimate.
A 2021 survey by Power Reviews states that 96% of consumers seek out negative reviews before buying a product. So, instead of being disheartened by a few bad reviews, think of creative ways to use them in your content marketing.
Here are some tips for handling negative feedback and using them positively in your content marketing:
Quickly respond to negative feedback and address the concerns of the customers
Create a case study out of how you responded to a negative review by making a change
Advertise the changes you made after a negative review. It makes your brand look human
If you get a negative review about the usability of your product, try to make a tutorial out of it
Final Thoughts: How To Get Reviews for Your Business’ Marketing
Customer reviews are a great marketing tool for small/medium businesses with limited marketing budgets. The user-generated content in the form of reviews can be a great starting point to make content for your business.
First, you need to seek reviews from your customers through various platforms. You can use Google My Business reviews, Amazon product reviews and Yelp business reviews. You should also set up your profile on business-specific review platforms and social media.
You don’t need a design team to turn customer reviews into impactful visual marketing content. All you have to do is leverage the free online tools to create content.
Moreover, you can use customer reviews in various marketing channels like:
Social media
Paid advertisements
Brochures
Website home page and product pages
Email Campaigns
With a well-thought-out strategy, you can even convert negative reviews into positive marketing content.
So, do you want your brand to shine through awesome review-based content marketing? Check out Bluehost’s content marketing services today.
Big news came out of Facebook with the announcement of Meta. Meta is the Facebook rebrand where the aim is to continue bringing people together and connecting them. An essential part of this is focusing on the AR/VR world.
And in fitting, it was announced at the Facebook Connect virtual reality conference.
But don’t think that this is the end of Instagram, Whatsapp or Messenger. The announcement means there’ll be more of a focus on creating the Metaverse as it looks like Zuckerberg believes this is the next step for the future.
What Is Facebook Metaverse?
Why Should You Care?
What the Facebook Metaverse Means for Small Businesses
Advantages of the Facebook Metaverse
Disadvantages of the Facebook Metaverse
Final Thoughts: How the Facebook Metaverse Impacts Your Small Business
What Is Facebook Metaverse?
The Facebook Metaverse is what you can imagine seeing in a sci-fi movie. You see someone strapping on a headset, sitting back in their chair, and going into another reality, like in the film Ready, Player One.
Picture yourself walking around as an avatar where you can go shopping, talk and hang with your friends, and participate in leisure activities.
In a video presentation, Zuckerberg also spoke about how immersive learning will become, allowing someone to transport anywhere and at any time just by putting on a VR headset.
Why Should You Care?
We’ve been waiting for the Metaverse for decades, from the first imagining of it in sci-fi books to seeing similar things on the big screen. And we are already in the digital age.
A report shows that the number of video gamers worldwide in 2021 is 3.24 billion. Paired together with statistics of people spending up to 6.4 hours a day on a device connected to the Internet, you can already see there might be an audience for a more immersive world than our games consoles, computers, and mobile phones.
Imagine entering the Metaverse and seeing your favorite artist perform live, and you could walk around them, arms-length away while they play your favorite songs.
Imagine being able to try on different clothes in a blink of an eye and finding that perfect look you’re going for.
Imagine meeting up on the Metaverse with your long-distance relatives and going sledding in some remote corner of the Metaverse or taking a gondola in Venice.
It may take years or decades, but the Facebook Metaverse could dominate life when technology catches up with imagination.
What the Facebook Metaverse Means for Small Businesses
If you haven’t already figured it out, the Metaverse can easily be the next big thing, and with Meta investing millions into tools to build the Metaverse, you can see that this isn’t planning to be an overnight fad.
So how might this change things for your small businesses? Let’s look at some of the pros and cons of the Metaverse.
Advantages of the Facebook Metaverse
Let’s first look at the advantages:
It’ll Help You Connect With Customers.
Removing the location barrier means you can interact more intimately with your customers. If you are a small community-led business, the Metaverse will allow you to meet up with your customers regardless of where you are in the world.
Rather than just being the community owner, it transitions your relationship to something akin to friendship, building more trust.
It’ll Give You Access to a Larger Customer Base.
Again, since physical limitations are no longer a problem, anyone can visit your business. You could have your store on the Metaverse, allowing people to browse what you have for sale, whenever they like or wherever they live in the world.
You’ll Get To Sell Digital Items.
The more people join the Metaverse, the more people will want to stick out, be themselves, and showcase their personality. One way they could do this is with items for their avatars, such as clothes or accessories.
Fortnite, a popular free-to-play third-person shooter, made $1.8 billion in 2019 from microtransactions that come from costume sales.
There is already a demand for cosmetic digital items, so what better way to increase revenues than with company-branded digital merchandise your fans can wear.
Disadvantages of the Facebook Metaverse
Now let’s look at the disadvantages:
The Buy-In Cost for Consumers
For people to enter the Facebook Metaverse, they require a VR headset. A VR headset isn’t something you have lying around the house for most people. Unless you’re an early adopter, you probably don’t have one in your home.
Without the desire to own one, it’s unlikely someone will spend upward of $200 to buy one, getting prepared for the future. So until the demand is high or the cost is low enough for anyone to buy a VR headset, it may take multiple years before millions of people are all on the Metaverse.
The Cost of Entry for Businesses
Depending on what you want to get out of the Facebook Metaverse, you may have to invest. As mentioned before, if you’re creating digital merchandise, someone will have to make them. If you don’t have someone to do this on your team, you will have to outsource it.
And if the Facebook Metaverse explodes, it’s likely the high demand for the creation of virtual items will go up.
Final Thoughts: How the Facebook Metaverse Impacts Your Small Business
Like the changes that COVID made to small businesses, pushing them online, it’s possible the Facebook Metaverse could be world-changing. It could happen in a couple of years or maybe 10, but watching how it plays out or even becoming an early adopter could pay in the long term.
Communities are a support network of people who share the same interests as you or are going through the same journey as you. They play an important role in bringing about essential feelings of togetherness and solidarity. Being a part of a community of friends, peers, and mentors helps to push people in a positive direction.
During this period of social distancing that we are all experiencing right now, the need for online communities is growing exponentially. Face-to-face interactions can only happen within the parameters of staying six feet apart and most major cities are now enforcing their citizens to abide by shelter-in-place laws. For those of us who are part of a single household, the only social interactions we’ve able to have are made possible through the internet.
Enter online communities—a real-time, virtual landscape that allows people all over the world to connect while we’re at home. These communities provide support to individuals who are impacted by the daily stress, struggles, and chaos of life. While online communities differ from the day-to-day interactions of real life, they can still be beneficial to maintaining healthy relationships and our quality of life.
How to Start an Online Community
When you begin the process of creating an online community, there are some key questions you have to ask:
What is the common interest that will bring your community together?
What is the purpose and goal of creating the community?
What are your values and how do they align within the community you’re forming?
How often do you want to engage with your community (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.)?
What platform(s) will your community be connected through (ex: text chat, voice calls, video calls, social media, scheduling tools)
What do you have to offer the group and what do you want to receive from the members?
Having the answers to these questions will allow you to form a concrete plan in moving forward with the creation of the online community.
Types of Online Communities
Online communities can be formed around any subject, interest, passion, or hobby that an individual may have. Your passions and interests could involve playing video games, building a website, being a parent or cooking and there are plenty of online spaces to build communities based on those interests.
One of the strongest examples of online communities in the web hosting world is the WordPress Community. WordPress is an open source project, focusing on core development, marketing, accessibility, and so much more. Since it is an open source project anyone can contribute to developing and enhancing the platform right from their computer. The unifying message behind this community is an interest in creating, building, and enhancing the features of WordPress websites. As the WordPress community is adapting to the changing landscape by providing additional support and resources to help people manage their websites, other communities are banding together to support the growing interest of people online.
In the wake of the current health crisis, the video game community has experienced a massive surge of online players across the globe, tournaments, and gaming due to the ongoing mandate of social distancing. The FIFA soccer video game is a good example of an online community with a large and interactive online community. The community supports one another through multiple platforms including text and video, shared goals that require teamwork, and content creation.
Communities can also explore very niche topics that are great for people who want to build a community for a specific interest. Another example is CafeMom which is an online community of moms sharing blog posts, videos, and other content. The site also features “mom support” which offers advice on toddler, newborn, and prenatal care in addition to an online shop featuring deals from commercial and local retailers.
How You Can Connect With Your Community
The internet is full of various online platforms that can help you connect and build an online community. If you are wanting to start an online community, it’s important to research the platforms that are easily accessible with functions that make collaboration easier for your community. Whether you are chatting on twitter or hosting a video chat, there are numerous resources to stay connected with your online community.
Text Chat
Blogs
Message Boards
Google Group
Email
Voice Chat
Discord
FreeConference
Skype
GoToMeeting
Video Chat
Zoom
Google Hangouts
Twitch
YouTube
Social Media
Instagram
Twitter
Facebook
Pinterest
Scheduling Tools
Asana
Trello
Doodle
Calendy
I recommend using a platform or platforms with a mix of each communication method. For example, the WordPress community uses Slack for everyday written communication and blogging for larger updates. The community also uses other platforms like Trello for task management and Zoom for video communication and scheduling meetings.
