In 2021, the convergence of five trends will change the retail industry faster

Social Media

In 2020, social media has demonstrated its ability to convert traffic. Many e-commerce platforms have used Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok to   Tok is online.   

It is reported that e-commerce platforms use social media to better conduct inspiration and product discovery online, because using social media to direct traffic to e-commerce shopping is very targeted for consumers, which is also the difference between e-commerce platforms and physical sales.

Social network big data knows everything people like, every event they attend, and everything they comment on, which means that social networks know more than people know themselves .

Third-party market

On-time delivery is now a primary requirement for buying goods in the minds of many American consumers. 2-day delivery, same-day delivery, and curbside pickup are now top of mind in sales channels .

According to foreign media analysis, third -party markets will spring up like mushrooms after rain, allowing consumers to get the goods they want as quickly as possible. DoorDash became a retailer in 2020, and Instacart seems to be bringing together all its categories of products . Amazon also has such a situation and is working hard to develop a third-party market .

Walmart may be competing with Amazon in the third-party marketplace , but the Instacart marketplace has the potential to broker such transactions through social media, and Target and Shipt have the ability to do similar things.

Retailers would be wise to see the potential for growth in third-party marketplaces and keep their unique product inspirations within their own control and their own logistics networks.

Instead, third-party delivery marketplaces are on the verge of stealing purchase ideas from right under the noses of many retailers, a process that will happen slowly and in the long run, they may not even need retailer partners anymore.

The last mile

Retailers need to create better picking and packing efficiencies closer to consumers. Hyperlocal fulfillment at the store level has exploded recently. It was already growing rapidly before the pandemic , and the pandemic has only accelerated its growth.  

With retailers’ stores closer to customers from a last-mile cost perspective, picking and packing can also be made more efficient using tried and true automation technologies.

Consumers want their products on the same day, they don’t want to pay for them and not get them on time . These types of operations put the power back in the hands of retailers.

Best Buy has already been successful in the last-mile war, and many others, like Target and Walmart, continue to push the boundaries of how their stores can function as fulfillment centers . As a result, investments in order management system upgrades and orchestration of these types of last-mile delivery market activities and efforts related to micro-fulfillment will surge in the coming years.

Curbside Pickup

The next trend is curbside pickup, but not traditional curbside pickup — instead of consumers buying online and picking up their order at the store, they buy online and pick it up somewhere or someplace.

Albertsons has announced plans to roll out Cleveron's automated curbside lockers at one of its Jewel-Osco stores in Chicago. If the idea works, it has a lot of upside.

For many communities, lockers themselves could become the new-age grocery store, where people can interact with their favorite brands online and pick up their orders at a locker without having to go to a real store. Rather than having to run expensive delivery routes to rural communities one at a time, lockers could provide a single delivery point for retailers so that an entire community can get what they need .

The whole construct just means that the overall delivery will decrease over time.

Computer Vision

The final trend that is shaking up the retail industry is that the trend towards online is here to stay .

This is also a trend that has only recently become popular - Amazon has Go stores , Dash Carts, etc. OTG and Hudson now license Amazon's "Just Walk Out" technology in some of their airport convenience operations.

Still, computer vision is more than just a novel way to shop ; it’s about streamlining both retail operations and shopping.

Computer vision, at its core, is actually the platform of the future of physical retail, as it is the answer to one of the most fundamental problems plaguing retailers today. This information is critical not only for checkout-free shopping , but also for implementing and designing all the necessary systems that will bring about the on-demand shopping environment mentioned above .

The five trends mentioned above will be the goals for the future development of North American e-commerce, and sellers focusing on the North American market can refer to them and prepare for future development.

2021

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Retail