The ecommerce sector of retail in the U.S. is growing, and the latest reports from eMarketer show that the rise in online shopping is evenly spread among various categories. In 2013, the overall retail market was worth $4.53 trillion, and is expected to grow by 4.4 percent in 2014 to about $4.732 trillion, as reported in eMarketer's first benchmark study of retail sales.

According to the latest ecommerce report from eMarketer, online sales will remain consistent for the next few years. In the category of apparel and accessories, ecommerce sales were worth $44.7 billion in 2013, accounting for 17.1 percent of total sales, and they're estimated to reach $52 billion this year. By 2018, eMarketer predicts this category will bring in $86 billion. While this number seems high, it will actually only be a modest increase compared to the overall retail sales for clothing and accessories, making up 17.5 percent of total sales in 2018.

Retailers can ensure their online sales numbers stay in line with projections by focusing on marketing and making sure their ecommerce software provides the features and support customers want from their online shopping experience. Offering a variety of payment and shipping options at the point of sale, for instance, could lead to more sales.

Online shopping offers plenty of advantages, but when it comes to buying clothes from ecommerce sites, there can be a few speed bumps along the way that may result in dissatisfied customers beyond the point of sale. When shoppers order clothing online, they may find the items they purchased don't fit. This can lead to dissatisfaction with a brand and a loss of sales unless the issues are rectified.

While a portion of online apparel sales that get returned may be due to customer-related issues, online merchants can make efforts to reduce the risk of error on their end. For instance, retailers can include measurements for individual items of clothing, such as bust, hips, inseam and sleeve length. These measurements provide more accurate depictions of products, whereas generic sizing charts may not align perfectly with all merchandise.

Some online retailers provide virtual fitting rooms that allow shoppers to enter their own measurements and see how clothing might look on their body type. Two engineering students from China recently developed software that relies on Xbox Kinect technology to create digital mannequins of individuals, according to Phys.org. This lets customers see what items will look like on themselves, rather than on a computer simulation with their measurements.

Forbes reported that the cost of shipping returned goods has dissuaded many shoppers from buying clothes online in the past, but these days, retailers like Zappos.com provide free shipping in both directions. In turn, shoppers may be encouraged to buy from sites like these again with the knowledge that it won't be a big deal if they need to make a return. 

Marketing is a key aspect of running a successful online retail business, and multi-channel attribution may help retailers improve their strategies to bring in visitors, get them to the point of sale and convert online window shoppers to paying customers. Multi-channel attribution can be used to evaluate data collected from retail management software to help business owners gain insight into how their customers are coming to their online stores.

"At its core, multi-channel attribution involves gaining a 'true' understanding of what activity actually contributed to a customer action – usually the sale or product order," Rob Stagno, president of marketing company Paradysz, told BizReport. "In the increasingly complex world if digital marketing, lines between channels (i.e. display and search) can easily become blurred."

Essentially, this method of gathering information tracks more than just how visitors arrive at an online store, but also every click they made on the site from the moment they got there to when they added products to their shopping carts. This allows retailers to see how customers navigate their site. Business Standard stated that multi-channel attribution involves looking at each click and attributing the value it had in relation to the rest, rather than assuming the first or last click was the most important move. Using this system, the source noted that brands could improve their overall return on investment in online ads by as much as 10 percent.

It's easy to click away from a site at a moment's notice, which means online retailers need to ensure their ecommerce software is not just efficient but pleasing to the consumer. This includes everything from site navigation and page layout to product descriptions and customer service. Fine-tuning an online retail store to give shoppers a personal experience can positively impact sales and customer loyalty.

A Harris Interactive study conducted in 2013 found that offering decent customer service options could be enough to prevent 56 percent of surveyed consumers from moving away from a particular brand or company. Live chats with customer service representatives, for example, can prove useful. However, Practical Ecommerce recommended retailers be wary of overdoing it with tools like pop-up chat windows. Having the window pop up on multiple pages can annoy customers to the point of clicking away from your site before they make a purchase.

Retail analytics can help you gain a clearer picture of what your customers want to see in your ecommerce store. At the same time, it's important to gage how shoppers are reacting to newly implemented strategies. Gathering feedback from people who subscribe to your email newsletter, for instance, could make it easier to know what is and isn't working.

Ecommerce is growing quickly in India, and as more Indian shoppers go online to make purchases, retailers should capitalize on the various trends in this sector. A recent study by Accel Partners, an Indian venture capital firm, predicted that the value of the nation's ecommerce industry will increase by as much as 400 percent between 2013 and 2016.

So, what should retailers be doing to reap the benefits of this rapid growth? SiliconIndia News highlighted a few of the latest trends in online retail that businesses can take advantage of. One suggestion was to leverage ecommerce software that can be tailored for search engine optimization and provide a higher quality experience for online shoppers.

Improving the customer experience can be profitable as well. Retailers that offer personalized shopping experiences with features such as live customer assistance and product customization may be able to pull ahead of the competition. The source recommended employing the use of data analytics to get a better sense of the types of people visiting a particular ecommerce website. Since so many shoppers use mobile phones and tablets to browse online retail sites, it may also be worthwhile to optimize retail software to work seamlessly across these channels.

When people shop online, delivery options can make or break a sale, and offering click and collect as an option at the point of sale could prove useful for retailers. The UPS Pulse of the Online Shopper global survey conducted in fall 2013 revealed that online shoppers in Europe are willing to wait up to four days for domestic orders and as long as 10 days for international shipments – longer than those in other regions around the world. 

However, a new trend is taking place in the U.K. Planet Retail recently released study findings that showed a shift toward in-store pickup as the premier method of online retail delivery. In fact, "click and collect" online shopping may account for more than three-quarters of online orders in the U.K. in the next two to three years.

"Retailers should be readying themselves for this massive shift in shopping behavior and thinking beyond traditional collection points," said Natalie Berg, Planet Retail's global research director. "… Retailers must be prepared to forge relationships with some unconventional partners in pursuit of better serving the customer."

Click and collect services are currently only available from about two-thirds of the top 50 British retailers, and just 14 percent of online merchants have more than one delivery option. To capitalize on the growing demand for more shipping choices, retailers may want to invest in ecommerce software that allows them to diversify options for shoppers.

As more shoppers browse and buy online, the need for retailers to invest in better ecommerce software and improve the shopping experience will likely increase as well. A recent study by Compare Metrics and the e-tailing group found that while many shoppers enjoy online shopping for a variety of reasons, the offerings of ecommerce software tend to leave them feeling shortchanged in the product discovery process.

Finding the right product should be an easy and intuitive process, but 73 percent of shoppers interviewed for the study said they had issues with search options, from the various filters to a site's misinterpretation of a key phrase that limited results. For this reason, 70 percent of consumers looked for the items they wanted with browsing tools rather than search options, reserving the latter for highly specific inquiries that would not lead them to the wrong products.

"Consumers prefer to browse versus search," Garrett Eastham, CEO of Compare Metrics, told MediaPost News. "The more relevant the inventory, the more likely consumers are to engage and make a purchase."

Retailers that want to take advantage of this study's findings may want to look into new ways to improve the shopping experience in their online stores, whether by creating better search tools or simplifying their sites to make browsing easier and more exciting for buyers.

Optimizing ecommerce software for mobile use will prove to be useful as mobile shopping grows more popular. A recent ShopVisible survey found that mobile traffic accounted for 30 percent of all online retail traffic in 2013, and this will likely remain a strong component of the retail experience.

To take advantage of this trend, retailers should ensure that their websites are designed to be viewed on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. According to OuterBox, an ecommerce Web design company, 96 percent of smartphone users have looked up information on products with their devices, and another 65 percent have made at least one purchase a month using their smartphones. This makes it all the more important to ensure POS software is easy to use on mobile devices to encourage more of these purchases.

Having a mobile-optimized site is not all retailers can do to drive up online sales. Mobile advertising is another key area of focus. Gartner, Inc. recently predicted that the mobile ad industry will bring in $180 billion this year, increasing by nearly $5 billion from 2013. According to Business 2 Community, video ads for mobile devices will be a big part of this growth.

When you're first entering the ecommerce marketplace, it can be easy to get overwhelmed by all the options available for retailers. Having the right ecommerce software will enhance the shopping experience from website navigation to the point of sale, but what should you be looking for?

Omnichannel strategies are growing more integral to businesses as technology becomes a larger part of the shopping process, so software that offers mobile support can be a smart choice. Practical Ecommerce suggested investigating the various mobile-optimized themes available from providers. You may also be able to see the platform at work if a provider has a public list of its clients. Explore their sites to determine if the provider can give you what you need.

Marketing is a big part of successful ecommerce business, and search engine optimization plays a major role in a strong marketing strategy. Finding a provider that can offer SEO initiatives will be a key component as well, according to Retail Online Integration. Make sure your provider can deliver on a claim by checking out how other clients rank on search engines. The source suggested finding an ecommerce software company that has clients listed in the first few pages, which you can find by using Google's PageRank.

All across Europe, the online retail sector is quickly becoming a major part of the industry, and much of that growth is occurring in Germany. A recent study by the Centre for Retail Research found that Germany saw the most growth in online sales in 2013. The ecommerce sector rose 39.2 percent, and the researchers predicted it would increase another 22 percent in 2014.

This prediction was strengthened by the latest retail sales forecast from GfK, a global market research firm. GfK researchers found that online sales in Germany would increase 25 percent in 2014, but Reuters reported that even with this growth, the online retail sector would only account for about one-quarter of total sales in Germany this year. 

"The forecasted retail turnover reflects changing consumer behavior," Simone Baecker-Neuchl told Reuters. "The online boom also offers opportunities to stationary retail."

Such opportunities may include omnichannel strategies that employ ecommerce software to enhance the shopping experience across all platforms. Providing a better point of sale experience, whether by offering more efficient service with modern POS software, accepting mobile payments like LevelUp, or providing loyalty programs for frequent customers, can strengthen the shopping experience for customers.