فانتزی های آینده: چشم انداز تغییر اجتماعی از خرده فروشی در قرن 21

Experts expect great retailing changes in the next ten years. What do consumers expect? With increasing innovation in retail technology and the large-scale implementation of e-commerce formats, shifts in consumer behavior can be categorized as social change. Sociologists have long studied the interaction of social change and technology, focusing on society members’ characteristics to help predict the future. One characteristic of enduring influence is age. In this research note, we consider consumer expectations regarding the evolution of retailing, with an emphasis on expectations of social change and the variance of such expectations by age cohort.

The fantasies of the “common man” as harbingers of innovation are not without precedent. H.G. Wells, the popular science fiction writer of the early 20th century, was well known for his prescient predictions of future technology. Under the guise of literary license (The War in the Air, 1908) and in nonfiction essays (Anticipations, 1902), Wells predicted such innovations as automotive transport, aviation, major home appliances, chemical cleansers, and suburban living. Trained as a draper and employed as a private school teacher after failing to finish a degree in biology, Wells had little real experience with the scientific technologies he imagined.

The stories presented suggest an interesting pattern of consumer expectations for the future of retailing. The majority of the boomlet cohort expected more changes in both brick-and-mortar and online venues than did the boomer counterpart. However, similar proportions of each respondent group predicted that they would be “traditional” or “old-fashioned” and buy products at brick-and-mortar stores. Interestingly, boomlet respondents who described a brick-and-mortar purchase often explained this choice of venues as a function of e-commerce’s failure to eradicate more traditional channels and made strong statements that nothing had changed. On the other hand, boomer respondents who described a brick-and-mortar purchase appeared to believe that online channels would change the face of shopping, but that they would be among the minority in their continuing choice of brick-and-mortar venues.