Arguably always in flux, the shopping experience has come a long way from the days when people used to go from store to store packing groceries into a basket on their arm, and clothing was ordered from the tailor or seamstress. But we still haven’t reached the utopia that some have been predicting, when your fridge will notice that you’re running low on milk and automatically prompt the store to send more by delivery bot.
It’s not even clear that we want to live in that world. Many thought leaders predicted that the pandemic would put an end to in-store shopping and drive widespread adoption of instant grocery deliveries, but that’s proven to be unrealistic.
One recent Emarsys report found 54% of shoppers still prefer in-person retail to any other channel. In the case of food purchases, people are four times more likely to prefer buying in-person than online.
itim Group plc (LON:ITIM) is a SaaS-based technology company that enables store-based retailers to optimise their businesses to improve financial performance and effectively compete with online competitors.