Stacy L. Wood

What do consumers expect from retailing in the 21st century? In this research note, we discuss how future shopping fantasies of consumers can illustrate large-scale innovations and changes in consumer behavior that are either anticipated or desired, thus shedding light on the transition from brick-and-mortar to e-commerce retail formats. We argue that insights can be gained by viewing this transition as an example of social change. Sociologists have long studied the interaction of social change and technology, focusing on society members' characteristics to help predict the future. One characteristic of enduring influence is age. Within a society, age (and, perhaps more importantly, cohort) is both a driver of, and a constraint on, the pace of social change or "progress." Comte, a French philosopher of the early nineteenth century, suggested that increasing life spans would slow the tempo of progress because the conservative influence of older generations would act for longer periods of time. The experience of older generations may hinder change because existing knowledge is most effective when applied to old problems or scenarios. New situations force older society members to "unlearn" their rules or modes of operation. Sociologists have found older society members to be behaviorally efficient and younger members to be behaviorally flexible across a wide variety of social change dynamics. Will this pattern hold true within the arena of changing retail environments?

In order to examine this question, expectations concerning the future of retailing were obtained from two important age cohorts, baby boomers and the baby boomlet (also known as "Gen Y"). A questionnaire inquiring about future purchase processes was distributed to these two age cohorts. The questionnaire consisted of an open-ended story-telling task requiring respondents to describe a fictional purchase for one of three product categories made in the year 2010. The use of students (boomlets) and parents of the students (boomers) increased the comparability of the responses across cohorts by holding other demographic variables (e.g., socioeconomic levels and regional influences) relatively constant.

The stories suggest an interesting pattern of consumer expectations for the future of retailing. Contrary to a "conservative elder cohort" perspective, similar proportions of each respondent group predicted that they would be "old-fashioned" and buy products at brick-and-mortar stores. Interestingly, boomlet respondents who described a brick-and-mortar purchase often explained this choice of venues as a function of e-commerce's failure to eradicate more traditional channels and made strong statements that nothing in retail had changed. On the other hand, boomer respondents who described a brick-and-mortar purchase appeared to believe that online channels would change the face of shopping, but that they would be among the minority in their continuing choice of brick-and-mortar venues. However, boomer respondents did not report many significant changes in brick-and-mortar formats. E-commerce alone seemed to be the salient element of future innovation for this cohort. Boomlet respondents reported a high degree of innovation within brick-and-mortar formats. Boomlet respondents also described more innovative scenarios overall, utilizing combinations of several technological innovations.

Finally, boomlets and boomers foresaw different salient benefits in online shopping. Boomlets endorsed the advancement of product customization and expressed a high level of comfort with the customer databases that retailers will need to maintain to fulfill this benefit. Conversely, boomers focused on convenience as the primary benefit of online shopping and discussed product customization only in terms of consumer-driven rather than retailer-driven processes (such as the selection of product features from an expanded menu of options), expressing discomfort with omniscient, yet dehumanized computer-assisted choice tools or shopping processes.