How Smartphones will Reshape the Future of Shopping?

Smartphone use continues to rise across the globe, and it is changing the nature of commerce. While early predictions envisioned a future where retail would go completely digital, emerging technologies are paving the way to a future where shoppers experience brands both digitally and in real life, in an immersive experience. Smartphones are pushing trends of personalization, increased engagement, enhanced customer service, and a combined digital and physical shopping experience.

Smartphones are changing the way we shop

Just under half of the world’s population currently owns a smartphone. Given that most of the community live in developing or undeveloped countries, this figure is impressive, demonstrating how mobile devices have genuinely infiltrated our society. In developed countries, such as the US, smartphone ownership is as high as 81%. Rapidly, people are using their smartphones to conduct more and more day-to-day tasks, with the nature of retail being majorly impacted by our smartphone addiction.

How smartphone use is changing retail

Internet users spend an average of 100 days online each year, almost a third of the year. Already, smartphones have become an integral part of the shopping process, from product research to checking in-store availability and making reservations or purchasing online. Currently, around 70% of consumers use their smartphones to plan a traditional brick-and-mortar store trip.

We can expect several significant trends to arise from this use of smartphones in the shopping process. The first is personalization. Shortly, consumers’ shopping journey will be enhanced by leveraging big data collected from smartphone use. Personalization will help make more accurate product suggestions and streamline the experience. It is also predicted that this will enhance in-store experiences; for example, a shop assistant can address each customer by name.

Another major trend will be improving engagement by utilizing mobile technology. For example, location technology may be developed alongside artificial intelligence to measure consumer engagement as they move around the store. As a result, retailers will be able to use this information to enhance engagement and boost sales.

Customer service will also benefit from mobile technology. Mobile technology may signal to retailers when a customer enters a store and will communicate valuable information about how they interact. This will enhance customer service by allowing technology to quantify in-store shopper demand.

Mobile payments will also improve in the coming years. Currently, a seamless checkout experience is a crucial part of online shopping. In the future, mobile payments will become more secure as the risk of data breaches increases. Also, loyalty and rewards programs are likely to emerge for online shoppers to benefit the customer and foster brand loyalty and advocacy.

Over the coming years, smartphone use will continue to be leveraging to improve both in-store and online shopping. Integrating the two shopping experiences and enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.