Do You Know What Life Will Be Like In 5 Years? IBM's Top Scientist Does (3)
3. Buying Local Will Beat Online
Online
stores currently have an advantage in their ability to learn from the choices
we make on the Web. While brick-and-mortar retailers drive a significant
majority of retail sales, online sales topped $1 trillion worldwide for the
first time last year, according to eMarketer, and are growing faster.
Today,
retailers are experimenting with new services that combine digital and physical
experiences in the store. In five years, retailers will rely on cognitive
technologies to make sales associates experts on every product they carry, so employees
can build on the rapport of face-to-face interactions with more well-informed
service. And as cognitive systems supported by cloud computing build on their
understanding of what makes individuals tick, retailers will soon be able to
anticipate with incredible accuracy the products you most want and need.
"When
you walk into that retailer's shop, everything you browse, it actually pops up
on a screen on your device automatically and says, ‘Hey, I see from your GPS
you're in one of our stores and you are interested in these four items. Let me
tell you the precise aisles and the precise shelves you can locate them on to
go see if you like them or not."
Local
stores will know their clientele so well that they’ll optimize what they carry
in their store. Given their proximity, stores will offer you a variety of fast
pick-up or delivery options. Two-day shipping will feel like snail mail. Five
years from today, the store will be the place where we go for personalized
advice, expert counsel, and the opportunity to experience products in immersive
and exciting new ways.
"There's a whole infrastructure in retail that will
be enabled by this, and it will be a very interesting sort of smart combination
of what we think of today as intelligent selling over the Web and intelligent
enablement in our bricks and mortar environment.”
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3023514/futurist-forum/do-you-know-what-life-will-be-like-in-5-years-ibms-top-scientist-does?partner=newsletter
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