New Year’s Resolutions to Forge Stronger Connections With Shoppers in 2021
The start of the year is the perfect time to take stock of what’s past and prepare for what’s to come. However, predicting the future of shopping and making appropriate New Year’s resolutions for 2021 is no easy task: The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted everything from how brick-and-mortar retailers operate to the ways people shop online, making it challenging to figure out what to focus on in the year ahead.
To help planners and strategists better understand the current state of shopping and which trends are set to have a lasting impact, Facebook IQ spoke with well-respected experts both internally and externally, conducted original research and looked at innovative brand examples.
Here we explore five resolutions based on this work that can help you successfully meet the needs of shoppers in 2021 and beyond. To delve deeper into the insights and discover additional key shifts in the landscape.
Resolution 1: Adapt shopping experiences to address new consumer expectations
When deciding where to shop, both in-store and online, price remains the most important factor for most consumers. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has made people re-examine their shopping expectations and increasingly weigh additional factors.
For example, safety is now crucial for in-person shoppers, with 71% of consumers globally saying it’s very important that a retailer create a safe in-store environment, and reliability has become essential online, with 70% of consumers saying it’s important for e-commerce platforms to always have the products they want in stock.1
One of the things that consumers have started to recognize during COVID-19 is that their preference of where they shop means more to them than it did in the past.
Resolution 2: Reduce shopping friction in-store and online
Anything can be purchased, anytime, with a click of the button and can arrive at your door—sometimes within hours. And because people have come to expect a quick and easy experience, they will leave if they don't get it.
When people experience friction—unnecessary steps, delays or barriers—they are more likely to abandon their shopping journeys. The COVID-19 pandemic has both added risks to shopping experiences and lowered shoppers’ tolerance for risk, making friction even more impactful.
Unfortunately, friction is widespread both in-store, and online. For example, 38% of consumers globally say they have experienced time risks (e.g., long checkout lines, hard-to-find products) while shopping in-store and 54% say they have experienced functional risks (e.g., out-of-stock items, lack of information on products) while shopping online.2
Resolution 3: Focus on both the transactional and the experiential
Traditionally, in-person shopping has been thought of as experiential, and e-commerce has been thought of as transactional: If you want to see and feel a product, you head to the store, and if you want to research or buy right now, you go online. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has blurred these distinctions and even reversed the roles of the two channels.
Increasingly people want in-person shopping to be efficient—44% of in-store shoppers in the US say a fast/express checkout would significantly improve the experience2—and they want e-commerce to be immersive, with 63% of online shoppers globally agreeing with the statement, “I want to virtually try on products from the comfort of my own home.”3
Rather than focusing solely on the narrow opportunity to capture existing intent, brands must think about how they generate fresh demand. This moves e-commerce from a bottom funnel activity to a full funnel one, with different roles to play across it.
Resolution 4: Reach shoppers across the street and around the world
It’s not just a Malaysia pandemic, it’s a global pandemic. And if we look at the depth of that, that also means we are all connected in every way possible as well, including shopping.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shifted shopping patterns and redefined what community means. Increasingly, consumers are going “glocal” and looking to balance the geographic extremes of shopping locally and globally.
As people have seen the economic impact of the pandemic, many have sought to help stores in their nearby communities: Two-thirds of consumers say they’ve taken some measure to support a small, local business, such as making a special effort to purchase from one or to promote one on social media.1 At the same time, global cross-border online sales increased by 21% in the first half of 2020, compared with the same time frame in 2019, as shoppers sought product availability and better pricing.4
Resolution 5: Build loyalty with a multifaceted strategy
COVID-19 has led people to experiment with new products, services and e-commerce offerings. Over 60% of global consumers say they have tried a new brand or retailer since the onset of the pandemic,5 and 58% say they have tried a new online shopping platform.1 This branching out has helped to erode loyalty, with consumers around the globe saying they now feel less loyal to both physical stores and online shopping platforms.
Increasingly, loyalty is won by more than just affordability—though that remains key—and is driven by additional factors, such as availability (e.g., inventory), accessibility (e.g., communication), attributes (e.g., environmental practices), actions (e.g., omnichannel experiences), altruism (e.g., response to COVID-19) and assurances (e.g., safety measures).
