5 Tech Trends that Will Change Retail

With a management team that has worked together in retail technology for 10+ years, we often think about what the future holds for retail. It seems like for a period of a few decades, we experienced seemingly rapid innovation — be it the emergence of the POS system and streamlining in-store operations in the 1970s, to the rise of inventory systems that enabled efficiencies in the supply chain in the 80s. From there we of course had the emergence of the internet and the e-commerce boom in the 90s, all the way to the prevalence of mobile and omni-channel shopping today. But like all great technologists, we’re always asking what’s next? Where do we go from here?

Here are some trends that we believe will continue to shake things up:

1) The focus on convenience will keep snowballing.

With the rise of technology innovations you might think that people’s lives would be getting easier, but I think we all can agree yeah…that didn’t happen. Instead the expectations on us have just gotten higher. There’s more demanded on us than ever, which means we need mundane tasks that normally would take up our time to become quicker and easier. Obviously this trend isn’t going to quit. Once complex tasks today become simple tasks tomorrow, demands upon us will raise once again requiring the cycle to continue in order to sustain itself. Everything will have to get easier to keep up, and purchasing and e-commerce will be no different.

2) Shopping will become seamlessly woven into your life

Not so long ago, the place to go for shopping was the mall. Here you had a place where everything you could imagine was at your fingertips. So naturally this became a fun destination spot as well. Shopping became a fun thing “to do”, an escape from the everyday.

In the future, shopping will not be a conscious activity that you set aside time to complete but rather it will be a natural extension of your life. The IoT revolution is only going to further the possibilities here. When your washing machine needs a new part it will automatically contact its parent company and order it for you. When your car drives within a few miles of your home, your favorite Tuesday dinner will be ordered and delivered when you arrive. Mobile apps like IFTTT and OrderDasher’s offerings with SMS and social media ordering already make some of this happen today. In the future, we believe this will become the norm.

3) AI + Personalization > UI + Cart

There is more data about the way in which you shop and the things you like than ever existed before in history. Every company that does online and even offline commerce today is finding new and inventive ways to gather data about you. In the new economy, data is king. The good news is that most of these companies intend to use that data for purposes of good instead of evil. Their ultimate goal is to make your life easier, and make shopping with them as simple as possible. We see this trend continuing and replacing a lot of what we consider to be typical e-commerce today.

Ever since the 90s, we have built e-commerce transaction flows in much the same way across companies. The flow typically goes like this. First, start with a product catalog available for purchase. Read ratings and reviews from others to decide what offerings would work best for you. Then, select the offerings and options you want and add them to your shopping cart. Finally, checkout and enter payment information for billing.

This process implies we know almost nothing about you, who you are, and what you want. The more data that companies acquire about you, the less you will have to do to purchase something from them. That means in most cases, they will already know who you are, why you have come to them, and what you want. User interfaces will only be necessary in exception cases where the data was unclear or just not present.

In addition, rather than having a “shopping cart” as essentially a holding place for items not yet purchased in one transaction with one particular company, in the future, the cart will be replaced with a rolling collection of needs that require fulfillment across companies (e.g. a family member’s upcoming birthday, dinner for that night, new shoes for the kids, etc). Companies will be able to tap into these needs and use what data they already have about you to unlock their unique ability to fulfill those needs. Even bidding wars might happen in the cloud without our knowledge to see who can fulfill that need the quickest and cheapest. The idea of completing a singular transaction with one company to fulfill one need at a time will become antiquated.

Powerful analytics and much improved AI will be working behind the scenes to make all of this possible. Entire economies will arise to fulfill the need for this across companies of all sizes. That’s right, SMBs will have access to the same level of analytics and machine learning algorithms that large corporations have today. Even the local coffee shop will have complex AI behind its systems, identifying customers and what they want even before they order it.

4) Discovery shopping up to a point

When we shop we typically have differing styles depending upon our goals. The “on a mission” shopper is looking for a specific item and wants the most efficient means to procure it. However sometimes we just want to see what’s available out there and we’re not entirely sure what’s possible. This is in essence discovery shopping and companies like Pinterest have proven there are big opportunities in this space. Some have even said this approach will dominate retail in the coming years.

While we don’t believe that is true, we do believe this trend will continue but will be augmented with communities and expert assistants (both human and machine) to guide a consumer in the areas of discovery that might interest them the most. This will be a requirement to make sense out of the abundance of options, which already today can become overwhelming and in the future will be downright impossible to navigate.

5) Natural language will go beyond “Hola World!”

When you look at how far natural language processing has come in the last couple years, it’s amazing. Just two years ago, Google would typically record a one in four error rate on spoken word queries. Today that’s down to one in sixteen. Apple’s Siri has come equally far since its initial release. Indeed, search has become more like an open conversation with a human being than a verbal spewing of one-off phrases for robot consumption, as in days of old.

This is already starting to bleed into the retail transactional process. As the amount of data about you grows, the requirements on what you need to communicate lessen. Just like with a best friend, where so little needs to be said, and yet it feels as though you two already know what the other person is thinking, so will it be with shopping. This will enable natural language transactions to be possible, as there will already be mounds of data to provide context to your words. For example, you speak “I need a new work shirt delivered tomorrow.” Based on your data, we know what brands you typically buy and your typical sizes. We know what style you like. We know where you work and the typical attire there. You had to say so little and yet systems of the future will pick up so much.

Overall we think these trends hold a lot of promise for the future of retail, and we’re excited to welcome the opportunities that these changes will bring. If your retail company would like to stay ahead of these trends, feel free to contact us at OrderDasher. We power companies to accept on-demand orders and transact e-commerce through SMS and social media. We make this possible through natural language, personalization data, and a strong emphasis on ease and convenience for the consumer.