Smartphone Users See Voice-Based Digital Shopping in Near Future, Ericsson Reports

Shopping by smartphone, done by 43 percent of handset owners weekly, will peak in coming years, said an Ericsson retail report Monday. Sixty-three percent of smartphone shoppers expect most people to have a personal shopping adviser within three years, creating a demand for digital shopping assistants to help with purchase decisions, it said. Sixty-nine percent of artificial and virtual reality device owners think those technologies will give smartphones “all the benefits of physical stores within 3 years,” said the report. Connectivity is driving two shifts in how people shop, with the trend toward smartphone purchasing expected to lead soon to the use of smart home speakers for “aspirational shopping support,” while also driving use of smart speakers for routine household purchases, it said. Selecting the type of shopping assistant for home and personal purchases will soon be more important than the actual purchase decision, said Ericsson. Sixty-three percent of smartphone shoppers want help with price comparisons, which could create a role for a home restocking assistant, and 48 percent want help making shopping decisions easy, a likely role for a personal shopping adviser, it said. Consumers expect AR/VR-technology to deliver the benefits of physical stores, with more than half envisioning an increase in home deliveries as fewer trek to stores. Respondents cited potential issues with personal information in the future and the question of whether digital shopping assistants can be trusted, it said. Results came from an online survey in January of 5,048 advanced internet users in Johannesburg, London, Mexico City, Moscow, New York, San Francisco, São Paulo, Shanghai, Sydney and Tokyo. Respondents were ages 15 to 69 and fit the profile of urban early adopters.