Quietly sitting at home and buying items on your computer was already more than a trend, it was a way of life for some.
But in the new world order it is now turbocharged. But note the trends within this trend. Shoppers are not just buying more stuff online. What they buy and how they buy it and from whom are changing fast.
Popular brands are gaining more clout at the expense of individual retailers that sell them. People browsing online are often looking for a specific brand and don’t really care which store sells it. Seemingly more and more, they are buying directly from that brand retailer, cutting out the middleman or retailer in this case. Nike now gets 30% of its sales this way.
Online advertising and buying are all so merging. Consumers who browse products online through, say, Instagram are increasingly also buying via the Instagram app. Live-streamed ads are starting to resemble TV shows, except viewers can buy right from the program. So, we have an online take on old-fashioned TV infomercials.
So-called shoppable videos are already big in China.