These trends are a real testament to brands that are continuously working to better their customer experience & keep customers coming back.

As summer comes to an end, most retailers are gearing up for the busiest (and most lucrative) part of the year – the holidays.

Earning your customers’ business means having a strong grasp on the ever-changing eCommerce landscape. To point your business in the right direction, below are some stats to keep in mind, along with key takeaways and recommended courses of action.

32% of online purchases are made over mobile.

As smartphone and tablet activations continue to increase, mobile purchases will inevitably increase as well. One way to take advantage of this trend is by creating a user experience optimized for mobile that can transfer logged in states and user data seamlessly across multiple channels.

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Consider what Amazon has done by offering “1-Click Ordering” on its native mobile application. A user can establish payment and shipping credentials once over web, and then use that information to make purchases over mobile with a single tap (Business Insider).

89% of consumers began doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience.

This ties in directly with the statistic mentioned above. If your online and mobile registration and checkout processes are clunky and frustrating, don’t be surprised if consumers begin looking elsewhere for a smoother user experience. One of the most effective ways to reduce friction in the registration process is to offer consumers a way to authenticate with your site using their existing social identities. This option benefits the customer because he or she won’t have yet another username and password to remember.

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PacSun, for example, allows users to register quickly and easily using a variety of popular social networks (Salt Branding).

91% of eCommerce retailers saw a lift in their SEO rank thanks to social referrals.

If you’re not providing your online customers with a way to share and review their favorite products using their real online identities, you’re missing out on valuable opportunities to increase your company’s online footprint. Rather than allocating more of your marketing budget towards SEO, give your users a way to generate content onsite.

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Em-Cosmetics, for example, is utilizing a customized Share bar and ratings/reviews platform that allows customers to voice their opinions about any product on the website. Not only does the Share bar let users publish to multiple social networks, but it also looks consistent with Em-Cosmetics’ branding (Shop Socially).

73% of consumers prefer to do business with brands that use personal information to make their shopping experiences more relevant.

Online shoppers are actively seeking out customized experiences. If you responsibly use first-party user data to learn about your customers, you’ll earn their trust, and they’ll continue to purchase from you. One way to acquire this first-party data is by incentivizing users to connect with your brand by offering exclusive deals and other personalized rewards.

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Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium created the Ultimate Fan Challenge, an online competition rewarding users for participating in on-site games that encouraged the exploration and sharing of site content throughout the Olympic Games. By incentivizing the sharing of site content, the organization drove an average of 3.87 referral clicks per share throughout the Games.

eMarketer predicts that worldwide B2C eCommerce sales will increase by 20.1% this year, reaching a grand total of $1.5 trillion.

Online shopping clearly continues to grow as consumers look for convenience and personalization. As ecommerce continues to grow, you want to make sure that your ecommerce platform and CRM system are capable of handling jumps in traffic while offering the security and protection you need to protect sensitive user data and consolidate all your user records (eMarketer).

What are you doing to stand out from the crowd?

It’s more important now than ever before to fully understand and effectively navigate the eCommerce landscape in order to win the hearts of online shoppers. To learn more about how retailers and brands are engaging their customers to increase online sales, check out the free ebook, Turning Anonymous Shoppers Into Known Customers

This post originally appeared on Business2Community by Gigya.