With online shopping becoming ubiquitous, US consumers are willing to take online shopping to the next level.

An emerging technology poised to change the face of retail is that of Virtual Reality (VR). Originally developed for the gaming industry, retail is beginning to see the value of enabling the customer to virtually interact with their product without leaving home. By using a device akin to Google Glasses, but without the maneuverability, customers would be able to virtually travel to a store where they could interact with products via an avatar. This has all of the advantages of online shopping with the added benefit of allowing the consumer to interact with the product prior to purchasing.

In Walker Sands’ new white paper, Reinventing Retail: What Businesses Need to Know for 2015, they discuss the findings of their Future of Retail Study 2015. 1,400 US consumers participated in this study and “99.8 percent indicated that they had made at least one web purchase in the last year.” Online shopping has become a part of everyday life; those retailers able to remove the most friction from the online buying process will gain the largest market share. In fact, “two in three consumers (66 percent) say they would be interested in virtual shopping, and 63 percent said they expect such capabilities to change the way they shop.”

Technology such as virtual reality may seem like the distant future to many, but consumers are ready for new technologies to be the future of retail. Virtual reality may change the face of online shopping, but with the e-commerce industry growing, will this new technology further hurt traditional brick-and-mortar stores?

 

Reinventing Retail: What Businesses Need to Know for 2015 Whitepaper

Walker Sands’ 2015 Future of Retail Study examines changing trends and consumer behaviors in retail.

Based on an analysis of more than 1,400 U.S. consumers, Walker Sands’ second annual report uncovers what consumers want in an omni-channel shopping experience and how retailers can use technology to increase sales in 2015 and beyond.

In the year since Walker Sands conducted its first Future of Retail Study, the industry has continued to experience transformation driven by trends such as the rapid rise of mobile commerce, introduction of Apple Pay and same-day shipping experiments with drones and couriers.

Key themes from this year’s study include:

• Consumers are shopping online more frequently and purchasing a broader selection of products, but Amazon is still the go-to website for most categories.
• The decline of cash use and introduction of popular mobile payment systems such as Apple Pay have accelerated the shift to digital payments, consumers still have concerns retailers will need to address.
• As commerce and technology continue to intersect, consumers are open to integrating emerging technology such as drones and virtual reality into their shopping habits, bringing new opportunities – and challenges – for retailers.