Colombia. Today, e-commerce is growing rapidly, driven primarily by a price-to-convenience ratio. Accessing more advantageous buying opportunities, in economic terms, than in "real world" stores and doing it comfortably, are the differentials on which its success rests. Having reached this point was not easy, of course, however it is enough for ecommerce to continue showing significant growth rates and users. But it won't be enough in a couple of years' time.
In Criteo we are already thinking about the ecommerce of the next decade, so, together with the consultancy Ovum, we developed the report The Future of Ecommerce – The Way to 2026, which offers us strong indications about how the next generation of consumers will be, how it will evolve and how it will influence new business models.
From the analysis provided by that report, we detect, among other issues, that today there is a still small but growing group of consumers who are beginning to expect more from ecommerce. This group sets the trend and will dominate the business landscape in the next decade, at which time consumer expectations will have changed drastically and their desires regarding the shopping experience will have intensified.
This will result in a highly interactive participation both in the world of online retail and in the environment of the physical world. Likewise, the concept of linear and universal "shopping journey" will have already become obsolete: The new multi-device user will be the norm; the one that fragments its purchase process along different teams and moments, which demands the same experience in all of them and also continuous, that is to say that in each device it can follow the process that it left in another.
This desire and need for instant and fast access 24 hours a day, seven days a week, will be another of the norms, driven especially by millennials (born approximately between 1980-1995) and by Generation Z (consumers born between 1996-2010), people constantly connected and who "inhabit" an online environment where events happen in real time and social media allows them to set the rules. These consumers expect personalized services and on-demand experiences across all channels at every stage of the buying process.
Proactive service, free or very low-cost support and delivery anytime, anywhere, will need to become part of this "new normal."
Consumers will expect, moreover, that the products advertised online will live up to the promise, not only in their characteristics, but in every way, without disconnecting between the "fit and feel" of what they see and what they receive. This puts a lot of pressure on retailers, so much so that those who don't meet expectations will fall by the wayside. That is why in the next decade consumers will want shops that provide an environment, where "going" shopping is an experience in itself, a recreational moment.
This need will need to be met with interactive environments, attractive in themselves, where technologies such as augmented reality will play a key role. The provision of diverse shopping and tangible experiences, online and in the real world, will become a central means to improve and differentiate a brand's value proposition.
No one can predict with certainty what will come, but we must detect trends, prepare for them and perhaps, why not, build that future that, beyond results, appears as exciting.
