The online store of the future: Is your business ready?
From unattended deliveries to 'invisible shopping' via videos or face-recognition technology for payments, e-commerce platforms are becoming more sophisticated.
The shopper of the future will expect more choice, convenience, inspiration, personalisation and transparency, said market research firm IGD in a new report, and retailers will use transformative technologies to meet these expectations.
However, according to its own survey, which questioned 223 senior industry players across 42 different markets and can be downloaded here, IGD estimates that 54% of food and grocery businesses are "only just starting to prepare for tomorrow’s digital transformation" while 11% have yet to begin.
This is despite the dynamic figures. In the UK, online grocery sales are expected to grow by 48% by 2022, accounting for 7.5% of the total UK grocery market while for China IGD predicts an even more impressive growth rate of 286% over the same period.
According to online retail insight manager at IGD Simon Maynew, the UK, France and the Netherlands are Europe’s “centres of innovation” for online retail expansion.
“We’re seeing developments in personalisation, rapid delivery and voice ordering,” he said
Click through the slides to see some of its predictions on the retail landscape of the future.