Soon ‘Online’ and ‘Offline’ Will Be a Thing of the Past

In an age when the last of the late adopters are finally getting their online presence off the ground, we’re hit with this hard fact: Soon there will be no “online” and “offline” anymore. Digital and physical assets will all be part of a unified shopping experience.

That kind of future is certainly suggested by this post by eMarketer, which claims the gap between online and offline commerce is shrinking—and that this is having ramifications for everything from marketing and advertising to inventory and fulfillment.

A few other interesting points made in the article:

• Mobile is increasingly bridging the divide between physical and digital commerce.
• Close to 45% of shopping trips in 2015 included some kind of mobile shopping.
• Many retailers have improved their inventory systems and fulfillment options over the past year, allowing them to offer better and more varied pickup and delivery options.

Indeed, our partner blog over at Materialogic has written about the fact that some retailers in Britain and the U.S. are opening shops without any backroom stock in an attempt to reduce costs by becoming purely omnichannel.

There’s no doubt about it: We are in uncharted territory when it comes to supporting these new kinds of shopping experiences. We only hope that brands will be smart about keeping up with the technology that will allow them to do so.