“Alexa, find me boys’ boots in size 4.” “Hey Siri, put baking soda on my grocery list.”

The future is here—and it’s hands-free, voice-activated, and highly convenient. It’s not a surprise that consumers gravitate toward features that make busy lives easier. The challenge for e-commerce marketers and brand leaders is having the foresight to monitor trends—and meet them in ways that drive the bottom line for e-commerce. With surging adoption in smart speakers, voice commerce is one of today’s hottest trends. Let’s take a closer look and break down what e-commerce marketers need to know.

Rapid growth of voice commerce

Voice commerce is the ability to make online purchases by voice—without having to start with or look at a screen. Through voice commerce, purchases can be made on supported e-commerce platforms by merely speaking with a smart assistant like Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, or Google Assistant, available on smart home speakers (such as Amazon Echo, Google Nest, or Apple HomePod) and many smartphones. While smartphones have been around for nearly 15 years, smart speaker use is on the rise: at least 31% of internet-connected households in the US already own a smart speaker. Voice commerce was used by 45.2 million adults in the United States in 2021, up from 20.5 million in 2018. Almost one in five consumers have already made a purchase with voice commerce through their smart assistant. Additionally, shoppers who use voice commerce drive up sales: an MSI report revealed that customers who use smart assistants for e-commerce browse 13.6% more and spend 19.5% more.

How could you tap into the voice commerce trend to help your brand? How are your competitors already capitalizing it? Answers to questions like these are essential when making tactical decisions to boost e-commerce sales. To ride the wave of the next e-commerce trend, you need to be able to see it coming, and this requires better, smarter business intelligence. The performance analytics platform Line Item provides powerful insight to guide e-commerce decision-making, including the ability to monitor trends, competitor activity, and campaign performance. It’s a robust business intelligence tool designed specifically for CPG and e-commerce.

The convenience of voice commerce

Voice commerce is an excellent tool when buying frequently purchased items—including CPG products like groceries and personal care—as the customer already has a specific category or product in mind. But it can also work in the earlier stages of the buying journey when a customer is researching products.

With smart speaker use on the rise and smartphones in our pockets, both offer incredibly convenient ways to shop online. It’s worth looking at how smart assistants recommend retailers when a customer wants to make an online purchase. Shopify reports that Amazon Alexa recommends an “Amazon’s Choice” item 54% of the time. These are usually highly rated and frequently sold products eligible for Prime delivery. Alternatively, Google Assistant recommends retailers that appear at the top of its search results, as it does when a shopper uses their search engine. For groceries, cosmetics, household products, and other frequently bought CPGs, some larger retailers, like Walmart, are partnering with Google to use Google Nest to remind shoppers when it’s time to buy frequently purchased items.

Voice shopping has been embraced by multiple generations. While it is great for the tech-savvy, it is being used by seniors, too. A reported 34% of voice shoppers are adults under 29; on the other end of the spectrum, 11% of voice shoppers are over the age of 60. The convenience of being able to shop without fumbling with a device promotes adoption by a wide age range.

Meet shoppers where they’re shopping

Where are your customers searching when they want to buy? Where do your products appear in an online search? Are your product descriptions working for you? Line Item can answer these questions through a deep dive into e-analytics. By providing insight into where your business is showing up in search results, what your customers are looking for, and identifying competitors, Line Item allows you to make better business decisions with e-analytics.

Staying on top of trends is crucial. What you don’t know can cost you sales. When the next e-commerce trends start affecting your business, you need to know. Line Item detects these budding trends, providing you with the necessary information to make educated decisions about how and where to market your products. Better business intelligence leads to better e-commerce performance, and a stronger bottom line. Line Item is your lifeline to more profitable e-commerce.