What you need to know

The majority of consumers are favouring online purchasing ahead of in-store, although there continues to be a fine balance between security and convenience with this process. Many consumers like using biometrics ahead of passwords, and are happy for sites to remember their card details for future purchases. Conversely, the vast majority are concerned about the security of using a voice assistant for a purchase, which will be a significant early roadblock for voice commerce.

Consumers across all age groups are most likely to use a laptop for an online purchase, but younger consumers prefer to use smartphones by far. Around a quarter of those who use a smartphone to make online purchases have done so with a mobile payment service, such as Apple Pay or Google Pay. Meanwhile, just under 30% of all consumers use their smartphone as a contactless payment device in-store.

There are also emerging technologies that are developing the buying process, specifically chatbots, social media-based shopping and AR. While these are currently quite niche, there is decent take-up amongst the younger consumers. Additionally, these technologies do provide genuine value in recommending products based on the user’s prior history and helping to visualise a purchase.

As a larger and larger portion of shopping moves online, retailers are aiming to combine the in-store and online shopping experience, so customers can be in-store but get more information about products. Technologies like QR codes or more advanced AI and AR-driven apps such as Google Lens are key elements of this multi-channel strategy.

Products covered in this Report

This Report analyses the start-to-finish process of making a purchase online, from how consumers get the initial idea, to how they make the final purchase.

There are several surrounding themes, which this Report also covers, including the use of digital assistants, AR and voice control.

  • Voice control – refers to the use of voice to communicate with smart speakers, displays, smartphones, tablets and other devices that include a voice-controlled digital assistant.

  • Digital assistants – refers to software that can respond to natural language requests in a “chatbot”-style request-response interaction. In the context of this Report, this primarily means through voice control, but can also include typed requests.

  • Augmented Reality – is a technology that integrates digital information such as images, text and sound and overlays them onto a real-world view, to create an enhanced visual experience which is a blend of digital and real-world features.

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