When we shop online, we’re all spoiled brats. We want what we want, we want it now, and if we experience even the smallest delay or inconvenience, we will immediately pack up our toys (or wallets) and stomp home in a sulk. The companies on the leading edge of technology are proving to be as accommodating as the most spineless and indulgent parents and grandparents. Want unlimited streaming movies and shows without any advertisements? Netflix is always a click away. Need a ride without the short walk to a cab stand? Uber and Lyft can’t wait to pick you up. Not to mention the fact that Amazon has conditioned everyone to demand same-day or overnight shipping. But like the entitled children previously referenced, no matter how much brands give us, we always want more. Let’s take a look at immediacy and convenience, and why consumers are likely to demand even more of both next year.

What We Already Expect

UK surveys have already found that consumers are unwilling to wait over 45 minutes for a food delivery, or more than 5 to 10 minutes for a taxi or Uber to arrive. One effect of this trend reported by McKinsey is that fewer consumers search for “business hours”, while searches for “open now” have tripled in the past 3 years. In marketing, we’re already learning that customers don’t want to wait around for an answer to a query, and increasing numbers of firms are using AI and machine learning to offer customers immediate answers to simple questions. 

In the eCommerce sphere, shoppers are holding brands to incredibly high standards. One survey found that 96% of respondents thought “fast delivery” meant same-day delivery, 61% wanted packages to arrive within 3 hours of their order, and 25% declared that they would abandon their carts if same-day delivery wasn’t an option. Customers are no longer willing to accept delayed gratification when they buy online. If you can’t immediately offer satisfaction, they are going to find a platform or retailer that can.

Why Convenience Matters

Customers don’t always know what they want. One survey found that only 13% of respondents declared that convenience was an important factor in their online purchasing decisions. But while they rated quality (32%) and price (31%) as the most important factors driving their purchases, a whopping 97% of the same group reported that they had abandoned their carts because of an inconvenient check-out procedure. The demand for convenience can also vary across industries, with grocery shoppers consistently prioritising it above others, and reporting that they would pay more for an easier way to buy goods.

But contrary to popular belief, convenience doesn’t just boil down to home delivery or easy checkout options. Online shoppers rated convenience at the very beginning of the purchase process as the most crucial area, with 38% saying it was most important “at the very beginning, when researching [a product].” The future of convenience might be offering the public all of the information they need to make a purchase in an easily digestible package. One way Adimo has taken on this challenge is by integrating a voice shopping feature which allows consumers to immediately see the price of your product across a spectrum of leading retailers. Other ways to offer convenience at the beginning of the process are with shoppable content and recipes, which will inform your clients how a scarf looks on a real person, or how to make a delicious dinner with the ingredients your brand is selling. Millennial consumers have reported that they are more likely to respond to prompts from friends and celebrities on social media than to content that comes from brands. So exploring ways to put shoppable cooking videos, Instagram posts, and real-world events into the internet ether is a must. Save your customers the work of finding out what accessory Miley Cyrus is wearing, or what brand of hummus Gordon Ramsay recommends, and they’ll reward you!

Selling Immediacy

Immediacy is all about instantly gratifying the wishes and whims of your audience. One of the things we’ve noticed is that there’s a gap in conversion rates for desktop and mobile shoppers. A McKinsey study of fashion and jewelry retailers last year found that desktop conversion rates were over 3 times higher than their mobile counterparts. In response, Stitch Fix COO Mike Smith feels that fashion needs something like the Shazam app, which enables smartphone users to find the song title and artist of whatever tune is playing in a coffee shop or bar. Smith says “There’s this huge focus on … doing a much better job at curation and discovery. There’s going to be a higher burden placed on the retailer and the brand—instead of the customer doing all the work.”

In the fashion industry, visual search options are quickly becoming commonplace. eBay has already launched an app that allows users to search items based on photos, while the Amazon Echo has a new app called StyleSnap which recommends clothing options to match any photo you show it. We could see similar breakthroughs in other industries, including recipe apps that process pictures of meals and add the ingredients to a cart, or cosmetics apps which identify and  purchase products based on a snapshot.

An easy way to start selling immediacy is by making all of your customer interactions shoppable. A customer asks a question? Give them an opportunity to buy. A customer looks at a social post? Give them an opportunity to buy. A customer opens an email… you get the idea. Shoppability combined with the rise of 5G and the growth of the “Internet of Things” will also give you even more opportunities to offer immediacy and convenience in 2021. You’ll be able to learn when your customers are in need of a product with greater accuracy and specificity than ever before, and offer them value by painlessly selling replenishment. If you haven’t been preparing to offer unprecedented convenience, get in touch with Adimo today and put your brand in position to succeed!