The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Retail report examined how the UK retail sector will change over the next 10 years.
E-commerce, m-commerce and s-commerce (sales made through social media sites) sales combined, are expected to make up a third or more of UK sales, compared to only around 10% now.
"The opportunities for retail over the next decade and beyond are enormous," said Jon Copestake, chief retail analyst at Economist Intelligence Unit. "But where the future markets will reside and the way in which we will buy goods will change dramatically. Retailers will need to evolve to adapt to this new landscape."
Mobile commerce is predicted to become a main way of shopping by 2022, with the report suggesting that more consumers will make impulsive purchases on mobile platforms.
Successful sites like Pinterest, which is a large traffic driver, will continue to push virtual shopping forward.
Retail analysts say that bargain driven companies like Groupon and mysupermarket will have merge and expended. Physical retail stores are not expected to fade away but will play a very different role in shopping by 2022.
The report suggests that convenience will be the main driver in making e-commerce, mcommerce and s-commerce more popular as more consumers will choose to take a digital, multichannel approach.
"It’s no surprise that the figures from the Economist Intelligence Unit show that online will continue to be a successful selling channel for retailers through to 2022," said Adam Stewart, Marketing Director at Rakuten’s Play.com. "While the high street is vital to the retail ecosystem and will always have a place, it is retailers’ new approach to curating products online that will continue to fuel the growth in years ahead."
