In this post we’ll list several most important things that merchant should take into consideration for the started year of 2016 from the prospective of technologies. The information in this list is based on recently issued Deloitte’s “Technology, Media &Telecommunications Predictions 2016” report. The report is pretty extensive (84 pages) and cover many aspects, so we selected from there what we consider the most relevant for eCommerce
Image credits Andrew E. Larsen
1. Millennials are the pro-PC, not the post-PC generation
In spite of widespread use of smartphones, that indeed used by millennials more often than PC at the moment (89 with 85 percent), they plan to purchase PC (if don’t have it yet). In fact millennials is the group with the highest access to PC in most developed markets including Australia. The losing category of devices here are big tablets, in average access to PC was 52% higher for observed 13 developed countries.
The also use it quite heavy, albeit less often than smartphones: 27% with 33% of media time. Again it is higher than other segments of population.
The bottom line for retailers: mobile strategy is necessary, but rely on mobile devices only is a big mistake.
2. One touch checkout
Filling numerous forms (sign-up, sign-in, checkout) is a big friction for mobile commerce.
Submitting all these data on a computer with a fullsize keyboard is a chore. On a five-inch touch screen, with predictive text in a mischievous mood and on a juddering bus, it can be tortuous.
Deloitte predicts that solutions that simplify the checkout process and allows customers to fill all this information with one touch and fingerprint scan as an authorisation mechanism will take off in 2016.
3. TV is not dead, while declining
The best way to describe outlook of TV (in US) is slow erosion: there is no sharp fall expected, but with rise of over-the-top (OOT) providers like Netflix, services like Youtube and pirate content (streamed and downloaded) the media time people and especially millennials spend on traditional TV gradually declines.
Interesting that TV ad market has mixed dynamic:
there were concerns over weakness in the TV ad market in the summer of 2015, as the mid‑point of the August US upfront estimates fell over two percent from 2014259. However by October, total TV ad spend was up 10 percent annually.
So it’s too early to write-off traditional TV, it can still be more effective, especially for older demographic than other channels.
References
- Technology, Media &Telecommunications Predictions 2016“, Deloitte (PDF file)
