The e-commerce market is expanding at an unprecedented pace, with more businesses entering the space and competition intensifying. By 2028, Forrester forecasts that global retail e-commerce sales will grow to 6.8 trillion USD and capture 24% of global retail sales.
At the same time, emerging technologies such as AI and generative AI are creating new opportunities to enhance the online retail experience and fuel future growth. Against this backdrop, a key question for e-commerce businesses in 2025 is: what are the leading technology trends that will help them stay ahead of the competition?
Conversational AI as a powerful engine for better customer experience
Conversational commerce is rapidly reshaping how customers engage with brands, shifting interactions away from traditional channels such as phone calls and emails toward more dynamic, real-time touchpoints. Today, brands can connect with customers through website live chat, mobile apps, and messaging services like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and SMS. These channels enable personalized experiences, immediate support, and direct purchases. Reflecting this shift, Forrester predicts that around one-fifth of global brands will add conversational commerce to their digital strategy by 2025.
As AI continues to advance in e-commerce, conversational AI has emerged as one of the key innovations driving this transformation. By leveraging chatbots and virtual assistants, it automates real-time customer interactions and moves beyond the limits of rule-based chatbots. Conversational AI can understand context, tone, and consumer intent, enabling more natural and engaging dialogues. Powered by natural language processing (NLP), these systems convert conversations into structured data that reveals what customers expect from online stores.
With these capabilities, businesses can gain deeper customer insights and provide tailored responses to individual inquiries, significantly elevating the online customer experience. This potential is already influencing practice: 86% of retail and wholesale digital experience professionals in the U.S. are either experimenting with or actively using generative AI to enhance customer experience. Among those exploring generative AI, 61% are focusing on strengthening the capabilities of chatbots and virtual assistants.
Omnichannel retail adoption across global regions
Omnichannel retail has become a cornerstone of modern e-commerce, describing a seamless and integrated approach that connects online and offline shopping experiences. This strategy ensures consistent messaging, product availability, and customer engagement across all touchpoints—whether customers shop via a website, mobile app, or physical store. Omnichannel shoppers show markedly higher engagement, with retention rates up to 90% higher and purchase rates as much as 287% greater than single-channel customers.
These benefits are driving widespread adoption of omnichannel strategies across regions, as businesses leverage them to unlock new growth opportunities. In North America, approximately 85% of retailers have implemented omnichannel solutions, supported by a mature e-commerce market, advanced technological infrastructure, and strong demand for seamless integration between online and offline shopping. Europe is also embracing this shift, relying increasingly on omnichannel approaches to meet evolving consumer expectations. According to McKinsey, over 50% of European stores now blend online and in-store options, a share that rises to more than 60% in categories such as electronics, furniture, and sporting goods.
A similar pattern is emerging in the Asia-Pacific region, where rapid digitalization is reshaping retail. Online sales in Asia-Pacific are expected to grow by 98.3% from 2020 to 2025, fueled by rising internet access and mobile penetration. According to GSMA, the region is among the most digitally advanced globally, with mobile internet subscribers expected to exceed 1.5 billion by 2024. The rapid expansion of smartphone usage and internet connectivity is accelerating digital transformation, making omnichannel strategies a central focus for retailers across Asia-Pacific.
The data below summarizes how omnichannel retail is being adopted across key global regions:
| Region | Key omnichannel indicators | Drivers of adoption |
|---|---|---|
| North America | Approximately 85% of retailers have implemented omnichannel solutions. | Mature e-commerce market; advanced technology infrastructure; strong demand for seamless online–offline integration. |
| Europe | Over 50% of stores blend online and in-store options; more than 60% in categories such as electronics, furniture, and sporting goods. | Shifting consumer preferences; need to align digital and physical channels; competitive pressure to enhance the customer journey. |
| Asia-Pacific | Online sales expected to grow 98.3% from 2020 to 2025; mobile internet subscribers forecast to exceed 1.5 billion by 2024. | Surging internet access and mobile penetration; rapid smartphone adoption; accelerated digital transformation in retail. |
How can a Total Experience (TX) strategy create total success?
Total Experience (TX) is a holistic strategy that unifies customer, user, and employee experiences to deliver seamless, satisfying interactions across every touchpoint. By orchestrating CX, EX, and UX in a single, coherent approach, TX helps organizations create greater value and achieve superior business outcomes.
In a customer journey, TX considers every interaction from the first brand encounter to post-purchase support, ensuring people feel valued at each stage. A prospect might initially see a digital ad, then explore product content that aligns with their needs, and receive personalized recommendations based on previous behaviors and interactions. Together, these touchpoints form a consistent, relevant experience that strengthens trust and loyalty.
A successful TX strategy also prioritizes a positive and engaging employee experience (EX). Motivated, committed employees are essential for delivering great service and shaping favorable customer perceptions of a brand. According to Gartner, organizations that adopt a TX approach can outperform competitors by 25% in both customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) satisfaction metrics, highlighting the impact of aligning internal and external experiences.
User experience (UX), another vital component of TX, focuses on making interactions with products or services intuitive and enjoyable. A well-designed website, for example, should enable users to navigate effortlessly, find information quickly, and complete tasks without friction or confusion. When UX is carefully designed, it reduces frustration and reinforces the positive impressions created by CX and EX.
By harmonizing CX, EX, and UX, businesses can build a unified TX strategy that delivers consistent value across all channels and touchpoints. This integrated view turns fragmented interactions into a continuous journey, driving higher satisfaction for customers, smoother workflows for employees, and more impactful digital experiences for users.
Recognizing these benefits, a leading healthcare company partnered with FPT to overcome digital experience challenges affecting both its customers and employees. The organization set out to modernize its digital presence while ensuring that every stakeholder received a coherent, high-quality experience.
As part of the solution, FPT revitalized the company’s website by implementing a Total Experience (TX) strategy with XM Cloud. This transformation delivered a consistent UI/UX across different countries and markets, resulting in a 25% year-over-year increase in website traffic. In parallel, FPT provided personalized content feeds that improved employee engagement, enabling staff to focus on professional growth rather than technical issues.
Discover how FPT crafted a Total Experience strategy for a leading healthcare provider and explore the full details of this transformation.
Increased AI use in website prototyping and development
Artificial intelligence is no longer confined to conversational tools or content generation. It is increasingly used to support website design and development, a process that typically demands significant time, effort, and coordination among multiple stakeholders. At the prototyping stage, businesses must create wireframes and mockups to visualize the site’s structure and user flow. They also need to select the right features, such as payment gateways and product catalogs, by balancing user needs with technical feasibility.
In this context, AI can rapidly suggest layout options and recommend suitable features based on customer behavior and business objectives. For e-commerce businesses, AI helps streamline website creation by proposing commonly used tools and integrations. This support can shorten overall development timelines and enable companies to launch their websites faster.
As a Sitecore Platinum Partner in Asia-Pacific, FPT has partnered with Sitecore OrderCloud to equip e-commerce businesses with ON.E – a platform that provides pre-built components and composable designs to accelerate website development. Powered by an advanced AI assistant, this e-commerce accelerator offers intelligent, data-driven recommendations to optimize digital commerce strategies. ON.E leverages a large language model to analyze user behavior and synthesize recommendations from multiple engines, helping select the most effective features. As a result, brands can cut time-to-market by over 30% and reduce costs by up to 55%. Sitecore OrderCloud is a core element of Sitecore’s digital commerce solutions, and its integration with FPT’s ON.E platform delivers substantial value for retailers seeking a competitive edge.
Enhance your e-commerce customer journey with FPT
The e-commerce industry is expanding at an impressive pace. As consumers are presented with an ever-growing range of product choices, retailers need innovative strategies to capture attention and build long-term customer loyalty. As a trusted partner to leading digital commerce and experience providers, FPT helps businesses navigate the complexities of the digital landscape so they can compete and thrive in the global marketplace.
To explore how FPT can elevate your digital commerce experience and customer journey, visit: https://fptsoftware.com/services/digital-technologies-and-platforms/digital-commerce.
