The Tech Disconnect Continues Between Consumers and Retailers
It’s a recurring theme in today’s retail environment: Consumers welcome, embrace and use technologies, including the newest, with little hesitation while retailers and other businesses are slow to understand their value, adopt them quickly and benefit from their use.
Local retailers and other advertisers were slow to add a Website and social media to their marketing/advertising arsenals and, more recently, mobile marketing, texting and geolocation, although consumers were already comfortable with these digital channels.
New research from A.T. Kearney, in its 2019 Consumer Retail Technology Survey, reinforces this theme and trend, as specialty stores are well behind big-box stores in terms of influencing and attracting consumers with retail technologies. In addition, the following table shows consumers only expect retailers to adopt even more technologies during the future to influence their buying decisions.
The Influence of Retail Technologies on
Consumers’ Past and Future Store Visits, 2019
|
Store Type |
Past Influence |
Future Influence |
|
All stores |
49% |
73% |
|
Big-box stores |
45% |
69% |
|
Specialty stores |
24% |
58% |
A.T. Kearney, July 2019
What influences these two groups of shoppers is quite different. Those buying at a big-box store consider convenience-focused technologies as most important while those shopping at specialty stores also want convenience technologies as well as technologies that deliver product information and novelty almost equally.
Which Benefits Consumers Derived and Expect to Derive from the Influence of Retail Technologies on Past and Future Store Visits, 2019
|
Store Type |
Novelty |
Product Information |
Convenience |
|||
|
|
Past |
Future |
Past |
Future |
Past |
Future |
|
All stores |
44% |
54% |
32% |
59% |
19% |
54% |
|
Big-box stores |
13% |
44% |
24% |
43% |
64% |
64% |
|
Specialty stores |
14% |
41% |
15% |
43% |
16% |
46% |
A.T. Kearney, July 2019
Saving time is another major benefit consumers expect from retailers’ implementation of new technologies. Of those consumers participating in the A.T. Kearney survey, 72% said “technology that allows you to reduce time spent checking out” and 61% said “technology that allows you to reduce time looking for products in store.”
