4 Shopper Trends to Watch

One month in to 2019, a common theme is appearing in all shopper marketing trends. Celebrity endorsements, catchy slogans or expensive advertising campaigns no longer have the appeal they once did. This year, winning over the consumer means taking them on a personalised, meaningful journey – whenever, and wherever they choose to shop.

1. Brands will sell in-store experiences, not just products.

Providing meaningful, value-added experiences in-store will be a way for brands to connect to the consumer on an emotional level, according to Hubspot. Pulling potential customers into experiences that surprise and delight them will leave much more of a lasting emotional imprint than simply buying a product off the shelf. Brands can leverage services like Shping to deliver content in-store that tells a compelling brand story: one consumers will remember and hopefully want to share with others.

2. Greater shopper personalisation

In an increasingly saturated retail market, the brands that can provide a personalised shopper experience are the ones that will flourish. A staggering 80% of consumers say they are more likely to do business with a company if it offers personalised experiences, according to research by Edelman. Personalising your customer touchpoints is about more than just making the shopper feel special. It’s about providing them with the most relevant content, information, and purchasing suggestions, when and where they need it most. For example, personalisation not only lets you suggest a product the consumer might like: it also lets you serve them useful tips for using that product, or recipes they could use it in.

Read more: Improve your customer touchpoints

3. Shift towards health & wellbeing

With #fitspo and açai bowls dominating our Instagram feeds, it will come as no shock to you that consumers are looking to brands to help make healthy lifestyle decisions. A recent study found a majority of millennials spent money maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and another finding that 85% of shoppers were activity trying to improve their diet. Some apps out of Europe are using personal dietary profiles to help shoppers choose food and groceries based on this pre-loaded profile while another is testing the effects of DNA-personalised food choices. There’s no need to get DNA from consumers. Giving your consumers ample, easy-to-access information about a product to help with their wellness lifestyle goal is a huge start. This can be achieved simply through product info, ingredients and their sources, videos and certifications, and accessing this information via a smartphone would be the most desirable way to distribute this.

4. Looking for authenticity? Turn to user-generated content

Sorry, Britney: long gone are the days where a celebrity endorsement would send sales of soft drink skyrocketing. Shoppers today want user-generated content that’s authentic and relatable. In fact, 60% of consumers say content from their friends or family influences their purchase decisions, compared to just 24% who say they are influenced by content from celebrities. User-generated content is also three times more authentic than brand-created content, according to consumers. When you consider that 86% of consumers say authenticity is an important factor in deciding which brands they support, it’s clear that it pays to be real.

Authentic customer reviews, user-submitted photos and genuine product experiences help shoppers make more informed purchasing decisions while providing brands with valuable insights into how their products are being used. By creating opportunities for customers to voluntarily share their experiences and engaging with them through social media and other channels, brands can build a library of authentic content that supports future shoppers throughout the purchasing journey.

If you’re looking for a way to connect with and reward your customers directly, Book a demo to see how the Shping platform can work for your brand.