It has been more than 20 years since we were first introduced to e-commerce, and it’s safe to say that it changed the face of retail as we knew it. No longer are we confined to set shopping hours and limited trade on a Sunday; now we can satisfy our shopping habits online 24/7.
These advancements mean that e-commerce is now the focus of some new key predictions for the industry in the coming year. According to the British Retail Consortium consumers are increasingly using the smartphone to browse retailers and shop.
Faster and quicker
As generation after generation becomes increasingly tech-savvy and everything happens at the click of a button, it seems obvious that we would now require our shopping experiences to be faster. Generation Z, for example, has never known a world where you can’t simply click a button or touch a screen to buy something. It is predicted that we will become increasingly impatient and demand fewer clicks, faster delivery and more regular and appropriate offers.
The personal touch
Marketing programmes have continued to become more personalised over time. Since the advent of the club card from Tesco, retailers have been gathering information about their consumers and tailoring promotions and messages accordingly.
Now devices, apps and software need to become cleverer at gathering and swapping information between them to create a personalised consumer profile that will allow retailers to push the correct marketing and promotions to the right clients.
When it comes to the personal touch, high street retailers can still win over their online competitors by creating an emotional connection and mood-elevating experience in stores, something that can’t be achieved online. Scent marketing and in store music are often used to enhance the shoppers’ experience and can be provided by companies such as https://moodmedia.co.uk/in-store-media/.
Biometric payments
Contactless payment has been around for a while, although it still has further to go to be considered mainstream. The future could see payments made even quicker using biometrics such as fingerprint recognition, facial verification or having your eye scanned. Moves are also underway by retailers to make payments systems even more secure.
Going social
Social media platforms are already a key component in retailers’ marketing strategies, and this is set to continue and grow as even more “buy” and “share” buttons appear on our devices.