m1nd-set study highlights traveling shopper behaviour trends
In the study, the research company interviewed 1,500 consumers who have travelled internationally in the past 12 months, to find key emerging retail trends and influencing factors that will impact their shopping behaviour in the future. Next came shopping experience and sustainability.
According to m1nd-set, the most important influencing factor was technological advancements. Same-day and next-day delivery options will be increasingly important, which m1nd-set suggests will force many retailers to rethink their supply chain logistics. Over 25% of shoppers also expressed the importance of the “Click and Collect” feature.
Other technological trends include greater personalization in the marketing and product offer to individual consumers, facial recognition and visual search. Additionally, the study reveals that more than three-quarters of shoppers in some developed markets expect retailers to provide Augmented Reality (AR) as part of the shopping experience.
Some trends have grown considerably as a result of the pandemic will continue to be important, say shoppers. These include contactless solutions including payment, delivery and even contactless stores. These shoppers suggest the use of QR codes and robotics will become more important in the retail space. Shopping from social media such as Instagram, Pinterest and live streams are an important technological trend, especially for Millennials and Gen Z shoppers.
The study highlights that certain inflight retailers have made substantial investments in their online catalogue and home delivery service, and predicts that more inflight and other retailers will make similar investments to stay competitive.
Peter Mohn, CEO & Owner of m1nd-set, stated: “The research underlines the growing importance the pandemic has had on both sustainability and technology in retail as well as the importance of unique in-store experiences. Shoppers are unquestionably more sensitive to responsible consumption now and sustainable values must be an integral part of the shopping experience for retailers to remain relevant. It’s estimated that the pandemic has accelerated the shift to digital by around five years. Even when analysing the findings about the importance of the retail experience, we see that shoppers are looking for a more integrated experience, which combines both physical and digital – they want to experience in-store and purchase online. The growing focus on digital has implications for the travel retail sector too of course. The ‘immediacy’ trend regarding delivery, with the growth of same-day delivery, click-and-collect options and the curb-side pick-up model we see in high-street retail, will need to be mirrored in travel retail with a greater emphasis in the future on out-of-store pick-up locations between security and the gate or even seat-delivery on board the aircraft.
“The greater emphasis on digital is even likely to put the ‘inflight’ retail offer on a more level playing ground with airport retailers,” Mohn added, “especially given that airlines benefit from having direct access to the passenger data including highly valuable information such as travel class, frequency and whether a passenger is travelling with their family.
“This contextual and circumstantial data, Mohn concludes, “when properly ‘mined’ and managed, will be the new gold. All stakeholders are being forced to rethink their business models and revenue strategies. If airlines start to capitalize on their unique asset and invest more in the data management for ancillary revenue purposes, this could be a gamechanger for the industry.”
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