Shopping Scenario 2030 (predictions)

SUPERMARKETS OF 2030

At some point in the future between 2013 and 2030 retail outlets in the city would reach the point of breakdown. There would be mass protests by retailers union against on-line shopping that has spiraled out of control. The best thing for online shopping sites to do would be to come up with a system that integrates local retail outlets with the online shopping sites such that there is a scenario of getting things even while being able to create a more simple yet sophisticated delivery system that could save a lot of time and fuel. Let us hope that by 2030 the transition imbalance would have reached perfect symmetry keeping all parties happy.

 

Going to supermarkets would be nostalgic and it’d be something that my kids wouldn’t understand. Not that they’d be literally missing a great deal of ‘real’ shopping experience due to the fact that developments in virtual reality would’ve ramped up by then to compensate for the ‘real’ by ‘artificially real’ experience.

Fully functional supermarkets even with the complete absence of customers(physically) would call for a greater demand for robots. Supermarket turned to huge store rooms and store keepers/staff replaced by robots. I wonder where I’d fit the vast potentially jobless population? Maybe cashiers would become robot maintenance specialists, packers would become delivery personnel(wait, didn’t they already try that fully automated car out there in Google?) There might still be rooms for customer service personnel I hope.

DIGITAL WORLD OF 2030

Online shopping has revolutionized the ease of getting stuffs that were once rather fishy to obtain. You know exactly what I am talking about, pornography... but there was a catch for it involved digitalization. Any product sold in digital format, be it video,audio, software, books etc. stands a risk of being shared or even illegally distributed. And by 2030, the first wave of digital products would have swept through the whole world and thereby giving birth to a huge base of customers, especially form those countries that are now poorly developed. The competition between online shopping sites would simply become sharper while the ease of obtaining illegal data would simply rise exponentially. For example, I became familiar with torrent downloads only at class 11. Nowadays, children as young as 12 use it.

It would be pessimistic to predict a hopeless future for digital resellers. Things can always change, take iTunes for example. An environment that single handedly curbed piracy on a massive scale. Their strategy was to provide something ‘more’ to those who buy music. Something that pirated copies couldn’t deliver. Something that was tempting. And thanks such integrated environments which have opened up a whole new perspective for online shopping of DIGITAL media. Video, audio, books etc. are creative products aimed to ENTERTAIN the customer but that’s not the case with retail soft wares popularly known now as APPS. Software has to be designed to meet the NEEDS of the customer. So I guess by there would be a drastic change in the way soft wares/apps are sold unlike other digital products like audio, video etc. there would be software (not programming language) to make soft wares. It would have an interface as shown below.9946741049

                The customer opens this app-creator app in his device (which might be a tablet, phone, glass like Google-glass or any weird gadget…)

Based on the idea of the customer the app would for first search for similar apps in the app- store and bring them forward to the customer who would then be given the freedom to modify that app to meet his specific function. The ‘modification idea’ would then be notified to the original app creator which would then be patented, shared with customers with similar search history and a part of earnings would be shared to the customer who contributed the idea to keep him encouraged. Or if the customer has an entirely new idea then viola… patent wars, bidding etc...The host company and the customer too would be very happy.

THE ABOVE SCENARIO IS WHAT HAPPENS NOW IN TECHNOLOGY INCUBATORS AND DEVELOPMENT CELL SITUATED WITHIN CAMPUSES AND COMPANIES. IN 2030 IT WOULD ALL BE DONE BY SINGLE SOFTWARE SITUATED AT THE HEART OF THE CUSTOMER. A SITUATION WHERE IDEAS ARE SOLD AS SOON AS THEY ARE BORN MARKED BY A TORRENT OF DEVELOPMENT.  SOFTWARE THAT ACTS AS THE STOCK-EXCHANGE FOR IDEAS.

By 2030, customer service would be the one weapon that companies truly have. , product quality, patents, royalty etc. would have lesser edge as technology would be at everyone’s disposal including customers. A competition so severe than now would exist at every level calling for a ‘survival of the fittest’ scenario yet under the threat of hi-tech shoplifting(not only for digital commodities – a few years ago i came across a popular way to hack retail commodities sites by directly going on to their ‘delivery’ page skipping the ‘payments’ page. Imagine what it would be like at 2030!)

The above scenario would also be applicable to real products apart from digital products. It’s the flow and collaboration of idea that counts. By 2030 the so called ‘flow’ would be highly facilitated UNLIKE TODAY, and that fact alone would account for all the drastic change which I barely tried to predict.