Future of shopping

Always ahead of the game, directional designers label Prada, launched in 2001 its New York 'epicentre store' with interactive dressing rooms. According to the latest study by TNS, consumers are ready for more futuristic revolutionary shopping experiences. The ‘New Future In Store’ study tell us, shoppers can’t wait until holographic sales assistance, interactive dressing rooms, biometric fingerprint payments and intelligent shopping carts become true.

The global market research firm TNT found that shoppers in Asia, Canada, Europe and the United States share their views on shopping and rate the appeal of 12 innovations that have the potential to revolutionize the shopping experience. 60% of shoppers across the globe believe that they will be able to pay for purchases using just their fingerprint by 2015, with this innovation rated top by 25% of shoppers. However, the innovation is not as popular with U.S. shoppers, just 19% voted for it as their favourite. U.S. shoppers instead prefer interactive, intelligent shopping carts that locate products in the store, check prices and promotions upload recipes and complete the checkout process.

73% of shoppers globally say they expect to be using interactive touch screens in dressing rooms to communicate with sales assistants by 2015, while half or more expect that 3D body scanning and interactive dressing room mirrors will eliminate the stresses of trying on that new outfit. The most likely innovation to be used in the future will be shopping via social networking Web sites and collaborative product development, which is already in use by some shoppers today. The appeal of the 12 innovations differs dramatically among shoppers in different countries. Chinese shoppers rate the concept of an in-store holographic sales assistant much higher than shoppers in other countries, while German shoppers are far more interested in having a body scan to help their clothes to fit.

The survey New Future In Store by TNT interviewed over 4,600 primary household shoppers online in the following eight countries Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Image: Prada