Predictions are what we love most about New Year’s Eve, and for good reason: they help us prepare for tomorrow’s challenges and gain the upper hand in the competitive business environment. So what does 2019 have in store for internet retailers? Here’s how three major research and analytic agencies see retail trends for the upcoming year.
Increased IoT interactions
According to Gartner, by 2020 the number of IoT devices is set to increase from 8.4 billion in 2017 to 20.4 billion. This means, in 2019 the IoT trend will finally shift from hype to reality and will start to influence the way customers shop online and offline on an everyday basis. Home speakers, refrigerators, cars, and community surveillance cameras will collect data about product uses and customer behavior, connect to stores automatically to replenish product supply and more. In fact, since 2015, Amazon has been selling the wifi-connected device called Dash Buttons for automatically reordering favorite products and has already partnered with more than 200 brands to have their product listed on Dash. E-commerce platforms will have to adjust to interacting with smart devices and will have to undergo substantial changes, especially on the retail backend. From inventory and warehouse management to tracking deliveries with RFID chips and sensors, IoT has the potential to streamline backend processes, reduce the human factor and eliminate mistakes.
Retailers selling hi-end products, warranted products or products that require regular maintenance, can also leverage IoT to their benefit: be automatically informed when the warranty expires or the item needs maintenance. IoT sensors also provide information on item location, which helps eradicate theft.
Growing number of smartphone and smartphone driven sales
While IoT may still sound like science fiction, smartphones have now become almost as common as TV or the Internet. Yet, in 2018 we have seen the growing number of smartphone sales and the trend is going to persist in the near future. Since application development is no longer accessible to the chosen few, brands are increasingly allowing their customers to shop through mobile apps, and most e-stores now have convenient mobile versions.
A survey by Forrester research bureau states, digital is set to impact 58% of retail sales by 2023 with smartphones playing a huge part in the equation. Even if customers are not buying with their smartphones, they surely use them to browse products, view ads and make decisions. “Although online retail via smartphones accounts for only one-third of online retail sales, smartphones’ impact on retail sales is massive,” reports the research bureau. By 2023, Forrester predicts smartphones will drive $1.4 trillion in sales.
Growing role of social media
Today, businesses mainly use social media to generate brand awareness and create user communities but that is set to change now. Kantar Consulting agency says, in 2019 shoppers will start buying more through their social media channels. As of today, there are 209 million social network users in the US only, but they are reluctant shoppers. Although social media is, surely, the driver of sales and a treasure trove for user-related data and behavior analytics, people rarely hit the ‘buy’ button in their feeds.
The perception barrier of not associating social media with shopping will be finally overcome by Instagram and Snapchat providing the ability to load credit card information. Moreover, payment platforms like PayPal, Amazon Pay, AliPay and Venmo are now integrating their services with social networks and offering one-click payments, which will be mainly impulse-driven, predicts Kantar. Venmo, for instance, will be offering one more option for users to connect with their networks by sharing their purchases on their news feeds.
Apart from buying on social media, Kantar sees other emerging trends, such as growing use of voice assistants in online shopping (especially by senior citizens), the advent of AR and the increasing integration of online and brick and mortar retail with online brands opening offline outlet stores and offline retailers going online. The research agency also believes in 2019 we will see the increase in online grocery purchases with Walmart, Kroger and Target launching initiatives to attract online shoppers.
2019 is just around the corner, and even the brief overview of trends makes it clear that customers, as always, will continue to look for the easiest shopping experience. Powered by emerging tech, businesses, on the other hand, are prepared more than ever to meet the high standards of today as long as they continue to pursue innovation.