Shoppers believe fridges will arrange deliveries by 2015

Over half of UK shoppers believe that by 2015 there will be networked devices in the home to monitor what products people use, create shopping lists and communicate with other devices to arrange deliveries, according to a new study.

But are we all ready to embrace automated shopping? According to TNS’s New Future In Store*, the answer is no. While 52 per cent of UK shoppers predict networked devices will be used widely, just 25 per cent see this as having high appeal for them. And despite the promise of being able to give up the arduous weekly shopping task, consumers don’t see this as a practical solution, with just 10 per cent believing they would be likely to use a networked fridge.

But Siemon Scamell-Katz, founder of shopper strategy consultancy TNS Magasin, says: ‘There is no doubt that networked shopping is coming. Networked appliances, man-machine interaction and device-to-device communication will help us replenish our routine food, beverage and household items automatically. As this becomes more prevalent, it will have an impact on the numbers of new products coming to market, and we’ll see a higher new product failure rate and extensive range rationalisation in those categories where consumers will no longer have much involvement in what they buy.’

He continues: ‘Innovation may well come from new category invention rather than minor product development in established categories. This means that product innovation processes could look very, very different – with a consequent impact on what eventually ends up on the store shelves.’

*TNS’s New Future In Store survey asked more than 4,600 primary household shoppers online in eight countries – Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States – to comment on 12 innovations, including intelligent shopping trolleys, interactive dressing rooms, collaborative shopping communities that give power to the people and social network shopping sites.

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