Voice shopping may soon take over industry
Consumers increasingly using mobile apps, voice assistants to make online purchases
DAYTON, OHIO— Consumers are no longer grabbing their laptops to get their online shopping done.
Where are consumers spending their money? Online shopping is evolving into way more than just consumers shopping on websites. Spending on mobile apps more than doubled to $86 billion (U.S.) in 2017 compared to two years earlier as smartphone and tablet users spend more time on their mobile devices.
When consumers shop — in stores or online — they are usually looking for something specific and want to be able to find it easily, economists at the National Retailer Federation (NRF) have found. When they shop online they expect to get their merchandise delivered quickly and for free, they added.
“Consumers today want what they want when they want it and they don’t expect to pay a premium to get it fast,” said Mark Mathews, NRF vice-president for research development and industry analysis. “And whether it’s next-day or pickup-instore, quick delivery of online purchases at little or no extra charge is growing so fast that it’s something shoppers are coming to expect.”
Retail app usage climbed 70 per cent to more than 50 billion sessions in the U.S. on Android apps as consumers continued to migrate to offerings from “bricks and clicks” retailers such as Target and Walmart and “digital-first” stores such as Amazon and Etsy. The volume of searches for the term “Black Friday” jumped 115 per cent in November 2017 from three months prior, indicating that shoppers were more likely to seek apps to help with holiday shopping.
The average smartphone user has 80 apps on their phone and typically uses 40 of them during any given month. Time spent in apps is up 30 per cent to where the average person spends about 43 total days per year in apps. The increase in app use has forced retailers to put more of an emphasis on delivery speed and convenience.
Experts say consumers will ditch apps altogether in a few years. Within three years, 40 per cent of consumers will use a voice assistant such as Echo or Alexa as an alternative to purchasing items via an app, according to the Capgemini Digital Transformation Institute Conversational Commerce Survey.
About 35 per cent of voice assistant users admit to having purchased products through their voice assistants, and said they may spend as much as 500 per cent more through voice assistants in the coming years, according to the Capgemini study. Among other findings, 31 per cent of people said that within three years, they likely will prefer using a voice assistant to visiting a physical shop.
“Consumers today want what they want when they want it and they don’t expect to pay a premium to get it fast.” MARK MATHEWS NRF VICE-PRESIDENT FOR RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT