Social media is increasingly evolving from an entertainment channel into a shopping destination. According to a logistics trend report by Posti, the parent company of SmartPosti, 52% of respondents believe that social media livestream shopping is already commonplace in Estonia or will become so within the next five years. Even more people expect widespread adoption of one-click payments and automated repeat purchases.
One-click or otherwise frictionless payments do not necessarily mean completing a purchase with a single click in the literal sense. Rather, they refer to a checkout process where previously saved payment and delivery details, together with services such as Apple Pay or Google Pay, allow customers to finalize a purchase with very few steps. The aim of frictionless payments is to make checkout as simple and quick as possible, reducing the likelihood of customers abandoning their purchase.
According to Triinu Luidalepp, Head of Customer Experience for SmartPosti Baltics, the results show that it is not only what people buy online that is changing, but also where and how purchases are made.
“In the future, an online store will not necessarily be a specific website that consumers visit to shop. A purchase may start on social media, a repeat order may be generated automatically, and payment may take place within moments. Everything becomes simpler for the customer, but for merchants it means that sales channels, warehousing, and logistics must work together increasingly as one integrated system,” said Luidalepp.
According to the Posti trend report, 79% of respondents believe that one-click or other frictionless payment methods are already commonplace or will become so within the next five years. Meanwhile, 59% believe that automated repeat purchases will become established in e-commerce during the same period. This means that even individual consumers may no longer need to reorder regularly used products manually. For example, pet food, household supplies, and other frequently used items could be delivered automatically at agreed intervals through recurring subscriptions.
The way consumers try out or evaluate products before purchasing may also change. Forty-five percent of Estonians believe that augmented reality-based virtual try-ons are already common or will become commonplace within the next five years. Such solutions allow customers to see, for example, how a pair of glasses or a piece of clothing looks on them, or how a piece of furniture would fit into their home before making a purchase. Virtual try-ons reduce one of the key differences between physical and online retail by helping consumers assess product suitability before ordering.
The information consumers use to make purchasing decisions is also becoming increasingly important. Fifty-four percent of respondents believe that displaying a product’s carbon footprint or other environmental impact information in online stores will become standard practice within the next five years.
According to Luidalepp, this means merchants will need to look more closely at the entire customer journey.
“When customers are shown a product’s environmental impact, it is only natural that they will also ask how the product is packaged and how it reaches them. Environmental impact can no longer be viewed solely as a product issue. It must be considered across the entire supply chain,” said Luidalepp.
According to Luidalepp, the trend report outlines an e-commerce landscape where the number of sales channels and shopping options continues to grow, while customer expectations move in the opposite direction: the overall experience must feel increasingly simple.
“One customer wants to buy directly from social media, another prefers an automated subscription, while a third wants to complete a purchase in just a few clicks. For merchants, the system becomes more complex, but customers expect an experience that is increasingly simple, fast, and tailored to their needs. One of the biggest challenges in the coming years will be making that growing complexity as invisible as possible to the customer,” said Luidalepp.
Read the summary of the logistics trend report here.