The future of shopping: Message-to-buy

And the ultimate bundling of retail

“There’s only two ways to make money in business: One is to bundle; the other is to unbundle.”

We take for granted that 100 years ago the idea of being able to buy everything from one place was some sort of mad fantasy.

The early days of retail saw little, specialist shops where the customer got an assistant to fetch all the produce whilst they waited by the counter. Expensive and labour intensive - but then shopping was also seen as a social experience as customers made conversation with the shop owner and fellow shoppers. Going to the shops was, in many respects, the news feed of the time.

Fast forward to the 1960s and supermarket chains are the latest shopping trend. Why go to the butchers, fishmongers and grocers when you can get everything in one place? Self service stores, as they were termed at the time, exploded. Before long, supermarkets were offering their own branded goods to push down the prices on other products, as they look to own as much of the shopping experience as possible. For some time supermarket chains, and department stores for that matter, thrived.

Then along comes this thing called the internet. Amazon completely changed the way we shop and now the numerous delivery shopping startups are changing the way we do our shopping again.

Right now we’re just entering the next phase of shopping — Message-to-buy.

How can I have all the choices that my human desires now need, along with the convenience of having everything in one place, and make it a social experience to satisfy that need too? Mobile messaging.

Messaging is the main form of use on a mobile. Whether that be on WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, Slack or even SMS, messaging is the heart of modern, everyday communication.

Companies like Magic, where you can send an SMS and get anything delivered to you, started the trend earlier in the year. Operator — a similar product — took the experience further, and owns the most polished message-as-a-platform experience out there. Now there are a few companies starting to pop up and offer this service on top of what they already do.

Three Thousand Thieves are a subscription coffee company based in Melbourne. Their on demand services allows you to message for an instant delivery of coffee.

So, it’s simple. Send a message of something I want to buy and when I want it and an assistant will fetch the product and it’ll be delivered to me. Sound familiar?

Message-to-buy completely changes the buying experience. From the consumer side there is no need to put things into a basket, no need to enter your details after storing them for the first time, no need to actually check out, and there’s one-on-one assistants if you have a problem or special request.

From the brand side, you see the ultimate combination of sales and customer service. Chat one-on-one with your consumer, provide accurate and relevant add-on purchases and give them a personal shopping experience, all coupled in your own brand voice.

In reality, this is not a new way of shopping, it’s just only been available to the very rich through services like private shoppers or concierges. A bit like private drivers, this has just never been possible on scale before, but now mobile messaging can enable this to happen.

Watch as Facebook messenger, WhatsApp and Slack start to become the places where you shop.

No need to download a new app, no need to get email notifications, everything will be managed through their platforms.

For me Slack is going to be the most interesting to watch develop. It is slowly becoming one massive API where you’re going to able to integrate (or bundle!) everything. At the moment, people are using Slack integrations to get notifications from services they use or even do silly but fun things like open their office door. But wait until you can start buying your office supplies or ordering team lunches through Slack. At first, it’s going to be amazing, and then it’s going to feel normal because it seems so obvious.

Message-to-buy means you can control the whole shopping experience from selling to delivery in one personalised and seamless experience. It’s the ultimate bundling of retail businesses and it’s going to bring a new meaning to ‘anything, anywhere’.