Leading data and analytics company, GlobalData says voice-activated devices are becoming a ubiquitous presence in consumers’ lives and the growing market for virtual digital assistants presents new opportunities for retailer and brands.
According to GlobalData’s report ForeSights: Voice-Activated Shopping, voice-activated shopping is multi-tasking friendly and can increases the ease and speed of the shopping experience.
“Mobile commerce is growing rapidly and currently accounts for roughly one-third of total e-commerce sales in markets like the US,” GlobalData Innovation Insights Director Tom Vierhile said. “However, several issues including small screen size, slow data connection and lack of security are stopping consumers from doing more online shopping on smartphones. Voice-activated shopping may be able to avoid some of these issues.”
According to GlobalData’s Q3 2016 consumer survey, only two per cent of consumers said they do most of their food shopping online, showing the channel’s resistance to e-commerce. Voice-activated shopping may help shift these numbers from bricks-and-mortar stores to online platforms.
Mr Vierhile noted that voice-activated shopping could be a huge leap forward for numerous companies.
“FMCG companies should experiment with voice-recognition technologies to begin to understand key challenges and figure out how they need to position their own products to win in this emerging genre,” he said. “Companies like Colgate-Palmolive and Moët Hennessy USA are already experimenting with the technology and it is a good bet that more will follow.”
