Six Major Trends from 2024 – Social Commerce to AI Assistants
This year has been a bit of a rollercoaster. The cost of living crisis, higher inflation, up and down interest rates, increased corporation tax, National Insurance and Minimum Wage, then elections both in the States and in the UK; there have been a lot of changes, A LOT of fluctuations.
What’s wonderful about this time of year is looking back, and finding lessons, patterns and changes in customer behaviour. We have dug around to see what changes consumers have driven and how the retail landscape has been shaped latelt. Here are the top trends we think have developed significantly throughout the year;
1 – Social Commerce and Live Shopping
Retail brands have really leaned into the growth of influencers and social media platforms now being commerce platforms. The forecast or projection of how Social Commerce may grow is astonishing. TikTok Shop launched at the back end of 2023 but this year, Bloomberg reports that TikTok expects its U.S. commerce sales to rise to $17.5 billion in 2024!
Live Commerce is livestream shopping, so a brand is selling their products through a live stream, direct to consumers, and there’s a dialogue possible between consumers and live streamers. It doesn’t have to be an influencer, there are some statistics showing that knowledgeable retail experts are more powerful. Ref EMarketer
2 – AI-driven experiences
More commonplace these days, we see AI-driven bots helping consumers make purchasing decisions, AI image search, voice searches, customer service chatbots, virtual try-ons and live-streamed AI avatars. The trend first emerged in China through Alibaba but it’s not exclusive to China, recently we used the UK paint company ‘Little Greene Co’ to discuss paint finishes.
3 – Sustainable and Ethical Retailing
Consumers are continuing to choose retail brands that have adopted eco-friendly practices, mention in product descriptions about sourcing, materials that have been recycled and initiatives that can benefit the world. In response to younger generations like Generation Alpha (the children of Millennials) making ethical and sustainable shopping choices, more and more initiatives are being rolled out by retailers from start-ups to global brands. Sustainable packaging is now almost a certainty as well as donation points for customers to recycle old clothing.
4 – DTCs (Direct to Consumers)
This has typically been brands launching strictly on Social Media, pure M-Commerce if you will, we’ve seen enormous growth with brands such as Warby Parker (glasses brand) and Allbirds trainers, both of which started in the States, and here in the UK – Bloom and Wild (flowers).
The Retail Sector is responding to this fast-growing trend by mall owners such as Land Sec giving DTC brand space to do traditional retail; we read about the following in A1 Magazine. A 5000 sq. ft ‘CO LAB’ space in a mall in Cardiff will feature brands willing to diversify their channels; they noted that a lot of the brands on Shopify have big ambitions to move into traditional retail.
5 – Less Frictionless Shopping
Tesco’s GetGo- they only have four stores and the first opened in 2021, doesn’t seem like a big rollout will happen here. Likewise looking over to Amazon Go Stores, as another ‘prime’ example (sorry for the pun!)- they’re actually back-tracking because as it turns out, Amazon hired people in India to watch the shoppers and record footage but they’re going to be switching to scanners.
6 – One Click Shopping
A new trend that has sprung out of the Social Commerce trends already is one click purchases. Retailers are often doing ‘Quick Purchase’ options now, and with the wide integration of Apple Pay, purchasing couldn’t get much faster, or could it?
The retail landscape is always so dynamic, with new trends using technology differently, consumers pushing for change – it’s hard to keep up. At Barber Design Agency, we’re across travel retail and British retail; from one-offs and flagships to national rollouts. Get in touch to find out how we can use trend research to benefit your brand.