Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Technology isn't simply something that helps Young People get something done, i.e. make a purchase quickly and efficiently. Technology and interactive media play a role in identity formation and lifestyle. Online shopping doesn't do this for people. It's merely a convenience.

Yet a growing body of research indicates stores that fail to play an influential role within digital channels where young people pre-shop, socialize, and participate in virtual communities first, won't get the sale in the end.

Young People want to do more than consume; they want to co-create, participating in the emerging sharing economy. With the rise of the makers and locavore movements, and even seemingly niche trends like the resurgence of home-based and craft brewing, it's time retail environments built on active consumption....

The e-commerce shopping mall is littered with abandoned shopping carts.The e-commerce shopping mall is littered with abandoned shopping carts. Consider this: an average of 73.9 percent of carts don’t make it to the check out, according to the most recent data from SaleCycle. While it’s no surprise that the preponderance of discarded baskets are found in the travel industry (think: where some people are just comparison shopping for cheap flights or dreaming of luxuries they can’t actualize), coming in second is apparel.

“Only about 10 percent of apparel and footwear purchases happen online,” Romney Evans tells FORBES. The co-founder of TrueFit, a data analytics company, believes sizing plays a big part in consumers’ lack of confidence. Drapers Etail Report found that sizing problems accounted for more than 70% of fashion purchased online was subsequently returned...

According to research based on an analysis of more than 100,000 e-commerce stores, 50.3% of the traffic in virtual shops are from mobile devices (being 40.3% from mobile phones and 10% from tablets) and only 49.7% from computers.

It may sound crazy, but the fact is that mobile commerce is already a reality. Also according to research, the Google search traffic comprised 18% of traffic from computers and only 12% for mobile phones.

These data seem to show that computers are being used for research products, while mobile devices for spontaneous purchases, which are instigated from Social Media, Email Marketing and SMS Marketing. The increase in purchases on mobile devices also brings another exciting trend, which we are calling “always buying”....