Trend Analysis
The spreading of COVID-19 pandemic has created a severe negative impact on the world economy. Statista (2022) have assessed the amount of Global gross domestic product (GDP) loss are as high as 4.5% drop in economic growth. As a result, in 2020, the loss in global economic output is estimated to be 2.96 trillion US-dollar. The damage is caused mainly by the deficiency of demand. Although the economic have shown a recovery sign, many countries are still affected by the fourth wave of the pandemic which challenge the mitigation process throughout the world.
The Prolonged Pandemic
Carat Media trend 2022
According to Carat (2022), the impact of pandemic is much greater and last longer than everyone initially expected in 2020. Even though the report has shown that the economy is currently entering a recovery stage (The World Bank, 2021), the society, however, cannot be fully reverse back to 2019 (Pre-pandemic period). As a result of pandemic, many rising trends are accelerated as well as there is a sign of the development of new trend and customer behavior. Businesses are recommended to adapt and exploits the most benefits out of this opportunity
Omnichannel Everything
Nowadays, customer grow accustomed to the flexibility that the hybrid marketing models have offered. The model allows customer to access to the product both online and in-store, as well as the combination of the two (Carat, 2022). An omnichannel strategy refers to the presence of the brand or retailers in multiple channels at the same time with the aim to achieved a full integration between all channels (Giner, 2021). According to WARC (2022) study, over 81% of adult customer worldwide prefer a mix of in-store and online purchase experience, they also reported to engage in both channels in the past three months. This indicated that omnichannel customers are the biggest segment globally.
The trend provided an opportunity for businesses and marketers to increase the overall sales by implementing seamless shopping experience across all channels. Furthermore, as digital commerce is thriving, the brand can target and develop a relationship with new customer outside their operating area to expand the brand’s customer base.
Figure 3.1 Omnichannel strategy Vs Multichannel strategy (Giner, 2021)
New Ways to Buy
As mentioned in the previous section, the impact of pandemic brought about a change in the society. Emerging trends have affected how customer traditionally purchase the product or service. New technologies and services are developed to create a new experience of the traditional way of shopping (Carat, 2022). The emerging process of shopping is called “The bring it to me economy” or so-called “The need it now revolution” is. The trend refers to the rapid delivery services sector which are growing its popularity among UK customer as a result of the experimental lockdown in 2020 (Wavemaker, 2022). Mintel (2021) suggested that even though the trend is developed to counter with the heavy restriction during the spreading of pandemic, customers are likely to continue to access to an extensive range of delivery option in the future. Thus, the emerging services and technology can be considered as a factor that introduce a new convenient and more omnipresent shopping experience to the customer.