Mercator Advisory Group lists 5 counterintuitive implication for changing shipping patterns.
1) Most customers (17 out of 21 merchant verticals) still prefer to shop in-store. Merchants who over-commit to online and digital risk a self-fulfilling prophecy of expecting physical stores to fail.
2) Consumers are surprisingly fluid in their channel preference and usage. 31% of consumers indicate they’re more likely to shop in store following online research.
3) The largest change in consumer shopping is the advent of online research. But there’s no reason to think consumers dislike in-store shopping (#1 above), so price comparison might be the driving force behind online shopping.
4) As new tech-enabled shopping channels emerge, consumers don’t tend to drop any of the old channels. So merchants have to provide consistent customer support across all channels and across all levels of experience
5) Remote order and pick up is a good example of an organizational silo busting hybrid channel. It must be considered a strategic component of the physical store and e/m-commerce implementations, but its very complex so there might be a long lead time before it arrives en masse.
