34. Future of shopping

Future of shopping

Imagine your girlfriend is in Pittsburgh chasing her art house dream, and you are in urban slums in India trying to uplift the grassroots. And still you want to stay connected, have dates with fine dine, together. Online dines could be the way possible. You could fix up a date and time, register in e-dine’s portal and hopefully show up on time, before your PC.

You start together, see the menu together, and order for each other… and get served (actually delivered) on the same time (almost). Online dines could be the remedy for long distance relationships that long for that one personal touch. 

Following are some ideas that came to my mind about shopping in 2030. Actually I have ventured not just into shopping, but a large collage of consumer experience. But there is one common theme that runs through all these concepts; catering to convenience of purchase; or in my terms ‘laziness of the user’

Size-Matching Stations

Full customization and economies of scale are two disparate items for current trends. What if we are able to bring together all those niche customers so that it’s possible to provide variety & at the same time, economy.

Like a size 41 for shirts, or 35 for pants… we can also have much wider variety of size fits for apple, banana, pear shapes… or ideally a web scanner that’d customize the clothing to fit you, and show you how it’d look on you.

The future I imagine will have clothing stores with size matching stations where one could alter the clothing to your fit. No longer you’d have to forego a good design just because the shop doesn’t have your size

Captcha

Big bang theory fans would recollect Penny using Sheldon’s app to create a database for different shoes so that anyone who captures a picture of a shoe could get the entire details of it like shop, price, design history, it’s availability etc.

Image based search would make searching for that one distinct shaped watch or that unique coloured paint much easier. And with it you get a more satisfied consumer.

There can be features like when you see a product which you feel is overpriced, you can just capture it and see what’s the best price you could get for it in the locality.

Get hyper

This happened to me recently. I got a discount coupon for purchases above 2000 bucks and it so happened that the one clothing I wanted to buy was in a different website that I had to settle for less than optimal purchase. Why not combine purchases from different shops, like an e-hypermarket so that I could get bulk discounts and still leave home (I meant logout) happily

Future I imagine will have a single platform, so that the benefits are availed even for products from different shops, by aggregating the purchases, like an online mega mall.

Get the touch

There are some items which I think twice before purchasing online. Some items I never do because I’d like

to get an idea of how it feels in my hand. Like that mattress I wanted to buy, or the material of leather wallet I desired.

Online retailers nowadays address this to an extent by having a few physical outlets so that the one exacting customer gets a feel of what he actually purchases. But it is still sub-optimal, since the money that could have spent in better products have been wasted in floor cost of the shops and to maintain its work force.

Like you have voice and visuals, the future of online shopping would definitely benefit from the ability to convey the touch and scent of their product. Hope the days are not so long from now.

i-Style

Fashion designers or makeover consultants need not be only for TV stars and sportsmen.

You can have the help of online fashion consultants, who’d always be there to help you get that one look that’d make you feel ten times better.

It’d be just like cars and two wheelers, once a luxury, now a regular consumer product. All of us can have our own fashion consultant, like our doctor, dentist or shrink.

Or you can mix and match, make your own style quotient, share it with friends, or if you are really good, sell it to spread your idea of what fashion is.

Internet of things

Consumer product companies or retailers can be like the hutch dog that always follows you, not in the creepy way, but in a more sophisticated elegant manner.

User specific products viz. chip in shoe collecting usage of the customer, which can suggest modifications for better shoe fit when you buy next time, will be the thing in vogue, and after sometime a basic minimum.

Or that couch that senses your sleeping pattern and suggest you a more suitable one when you search for a new one next time. All you have to do is stay connected, with your things.

Farmville

I was initially fascinated by the requests from friends to share their excess produce from their farm in

Farmville (I am not going into detail of when it started getting weird). 

Imagine if you could get updates of fresh farm produce, that one differently coloured turnip you always wanted or information about what your friend has got in his backyard orchard, and you can actually get or buy from them.

Farm fresh will not be just a word, but reality

In short I believe shopping in 2030 will be more about the product and user convenience than about marketing and retail space.

This blog is submitted for the contest FUTURE OF SHOPPING conducted by e-bay and Indiblogger. Please visit bit.ly/eBayCheck_Extention