The shopper of the future is extremely open to the idea of leveraging technology to reduce time spent in-store, with this interest in using technology to reduce time spent on grocery shopping increasing year-on-year.
This is one of the findings from recent research amongst a nationally representative sample of 1,006 adults aged 18+, conducted on behalf of Retail Intelligence by Empathy Research. The purpose of the research was understanding how shoppers may leverage technology to meet their needs, which ultimately could affect their future shopping behaviour.
Almost 6 in 10 (56%) of those aged under 34 would like to use more technology in their life if it made things easier, up from 54% in 2018 and significantly ahead of the national average (41%).
Adopting Technology
This desire to use technology coincides with this age group’s high-levels of interest in adopting technology to help with the grocery shopping. More than half (51%) of those aged under 34 claim they would like to be reminded by their fridge when they are out of certain products, while almost 4 in 10 (38% up from 34%) would be interested in their fridge actually going one step further and placing orders for groceries, once they have run out.
In keeping with the desire to use technology to effectively outsource the need to remember when a product runs out; there is a sizeable proportion of those aged under 34 who would be interested in subscribing to food delivery services to minimise the amount of grocery shopping needed.
Key services in this space exhibit high interest levels, whether that be a service which delivers all the ingredients needed to cook a meal (46%), or a service which provides all the meals needed for a month (38%) and while there are still desirable their interest levels remain unchanged year-on-year.
For further information and more in-depth analysis in relation to consumer behaviour and how they may potentially adopt and utilise technology in the future, please contact Robbie Clarke at Empathy Research.
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