As the year 2020 end, we all are ready to start our new lives in the upcoming year. After all, New Year comes with the opportunity which changes our lives in all aspects.
As all of us looking at 2020 with a lot of hopes, we are expecting a pleasant change in our lives. Coming to the consumer market, businesses are making some top-notch strategies for the New Year while keeping in mind the user’s requirement and ROI.
Users are expecting new trends especially in the retail business, here in this blog post, we are going to discuss that, I’ll elaborate on the technology trends that you might see in 2021.
Focus on Mobile Customers
In the last couple of years, mobile users over-passed desktop users. Nowadays most of the people access e-commerce from their mobile phone. Though, some companies are still not available to mobile users. Now, this is the time for them to notch their game and make their company mobile application available to their customers along with a mobile-friendly website. This will help them in enhancing their target audience and will eventually increase their sale.
Make use of the Internet of Things
IOT has transformed our lives completely. IOT comes up with some smart homes, smart homes and now it is time for companies to use this technology full-fledge to provide something advanced solutions to the retail customers. Companies are already enjoying the benefits of IOT, for example, we have a smart refrigerator, smart home devices, and smart speakers, smart TVs. In the year 2021, we can expect a lot of advanced and many products related to IOT technology. Also, if you still don’t have IOT mobile application for your business, develop one now.
Offer a never-before experience with Augmented Reality
If I talk about Augmented Reality technology, the first thing that clicks my mind is “IKEA”. IKEA uses augmented reality technology to transform the whole furniture and e-commerce business. Now people aren’t confused about which furniture to buy or which not. IKEA app enables you to place the furniture virtually into your home corner. That will give you an idea that furniture suits your place or not. AR technology is trending, companies like ZARA integrated AR into their shopping app to enhance the users’ shopping experience. The trend is exploding and we can witness that soon many companies will integrate AR technology into their business models.
Bring in the change with Big Data
Big Data going to play an important role in the upcoming year. As retail stores are making baby steps to fulfill the audience requirement, and soon we see that retail stores are making some implementation of big data. It surely offers advantages for businesses to test and analyze the user’s pattern and trends of the users. Big Data technology plays a crucial role in analyzing product popularity as well it will give you information about the users who are interested in products. Big data analytics help retailers understanding the audience’s expectations and behavior.
Chatbots & Artificial Intelligence
When Google launched the Chatbots technology, chatbots easies the human job. Now people can book an appointment online, making no call with the help of chatbots. While people on the other side don’t realize that they are talking to a robot and not an actual human. This big launch is considered a game-changer in the world of technology.
Retail businesses are opting for this advanced technology, as it helps them in providing innovative customer support services without hiring members to resolve queries. In the present scenario, people are more into online shopping and they want customer executives to help instantly over mail and chat. Chatbot resolves queries automatically and if the query is complex then it passes to the human customer executive. Hence, this technology soon going to be a big hit in the retail business.
Other Basic trends to be seen in the Retail arena:
Cultural & Social Responsibility
Time is changing rapidly, and today people are responsible and worried. We are taking steps for a better environment and this is the reason the retail business is required to change this digitally driven world to target their audience. Today a small scale businessman thinks about a lot of things regarding social responsibilities, ROI and because he knows that these are the things that are going to impact his future. We expect the same from the companies to make a good effort for the consumers.
Faster shipping
Instant gratification is the term that describes the present online scenario and generation. The term helps you understand the psychology of users while buying stuff online. Online shopping is a trend and designed in a way that urges people to spend more time, but the only thing it lacks is delivery timing. Yes, delivery timing people don’t like as customers, as most people want everything instantly in their hands as soon as they complete the transaction. Soon, in the upcoming year, we can expect retail businesses to make improvements in their shipping process.
So these above mentions are the few trends that are going to work in 2021 in the retail business. Implementing these technologies into your business module helps your firm to grow and stay ahead of your competition.
Author Bio
Satyam Chaturvedi is a Digital Marketing Strategist at Arka Softwares, an ewallet app development company. I’m a tech-savvy who loves to explore and implement the power of business applications and software. Being a tech addict, I love to spend time in studying market trends and helping startups and enterprises in achieving their business goals.