Things You Should Know Amid Online Retailing Transformation
As the shift to online retailing accelerates in almost all markets, retailers face a multitude of challenges to stay ahead of their competitors and fend off threats from new companies and brands entering the market.
No doubt – retailers that want to hold on to newly digital consumers will need to first and foremost improve the digital experience, putting consumer trust at the heart of everything they do.
The business model will also change – retail will shift according to ‘consumption purpose’ – it will revolve around two main models:
- Products as a utility – things that you always stock at home —consumers will shift to fulfillment by subscription or online delivery.
- Products as a leisure / pleasurable experience – people will go to physical locations like supermarkets and brick and mortar shops.
Set The Right Mindset for The Transformation of Online Retailing
We need to remember – offering new technologies by itself is not always the best thing – retailers may get stuck with large investments and incremental designs that may work for only a limited time. The key to think successfully is based on the notion that retailers need to innovate and reimagine what shopping should look like in 10 years from now in a way that the customer either already wants or doesn’t know yet that they want—and once they have it, they’ll feel like they can’t live without it.
Online Retailing Trends That We Should Look Out
- In a few years, 5G will have given way to 6G. We’ll have sensors, computer vision, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, immersive and three-dimensional computing. How can these worlds play together in a way that is almost fantasy-like? Figuring that out takes imagination. It takes experience architecture—a new type of discipline and expertise.
- Many technologies already exist, so the question becomes, “How do we use them?” It’s going to be all about creating magic. Great retailers, in the future, will make you feel like you’re in a special place, designed especially for you, so that you take time out of your life to go to that place because it feels like the right place to be. It’s aspirational.
- With a great Covid19 push, we as consumers have become more Health and Safety Obsessed when it concerns almost any product category. Particularly in food – we have gone beyond basic nutrition and now we are also protecting our physical and mental health by increasing the consumption of functional food and drinks that strengthen our natural defenses against illness and infection, aiming to improve immunity levels and boost mental wellness, with even calming and mood enhancing qualities.
- Livestreaming, which gained popularity in recent years as a content medium, made inroads during the crisis due to its ability to create the emotional connection more associated with in-person shopping. Combining elements of streaming video, social media and celebrity into a shopping experience, live selling started to gain traction around the globe as a way for brands to connect with shut-in consumers. Interest in this emerging retail channel is highest among global consumers between the ages of 21 and 34, peaking with the 30–34 age group with 46% having used this medium to make a purchase.
- Contactless card, mobile payment and digital wallet usage, both in outlets and online, are likely to see a long-term boost in markets that already embraced contactless and in-person mobile payments. Other markets, were slower to adopt but are now on the rise.
- Click-and-collect could become a mainstay. In North America, curbside pickup has become the dominant click-and-collect mode, given its appeal to suburban and rural settings where vehicles are a necessity. More retailers could follow in the footsteps of foodservice operators by pivoting to a drive-through model to better facilitate in-person collection, even at the expense of reduced foot traffic.
How Can ADK Insights Help?
How to decide which direction is best for the future? This is where ADK Insights CX and UX methodologies can be very helpful – What do consumers value / prefer / expect / value with current retail experiences? What’s the wow factor and how can we re-create it in retail in ways that didn’t exist before?
ADK Insights is ready to help clients better manage these challenging times. As an agency specialized in creating new market opportunities, we are able to further advance the purchase journeys, purchase experience and user experience of consumers in order to ensure a better competitive edge.
To find out more about our dialogue with consumers worldwide, please contact Nimrod, Rob or Dam at ADK Insights