Early adopters catch the worm

One key difference between Irish and global shopping trends is the adoption of technology. We’ve always trended behind global peers and countries such as China tend to be much faster adopters. We were slow adopters of online shopping and digital payments. More recently, when it comes to the Metaverse and virtual or augmented reality, we tend to be behind on that, but Irish consumers catch up quickly once they adopt. So, what do the experts think of Irish shoppers’ tech adoption, and what can retailers do?

Early adopters or lagging behind?

We are slower to adopt technology because 100 years ago a large proportion of Irish society was still living without electricity, says Paul Prior, head of digital at Three Ireland. “The good news is we are accelerating at an adoption rate that far exceeds our EU counterparts, and have already surpassed the likes of Germany in our adoption of digital payment methods.”

According to Irish Tech News, we’ve seen a 50 per cent increase in the penetration rate of VR (virtual reality) headsets in the last year in Ireland, albeit this remains highly focused in the area of gaming. In saying that, the closely coupled non-fungible token (NFT) market has grown 18 per cent, so it will not be long before we see an expansion of VR into a more interactive environment.

Now is the time for a cohesive, age friendly healthcare system

---

How your legacy gift to Concern Worldwide leaves a better future for some of the world’s poorest families

---

Good governance is critical for effective healthcare investigations

---

Joined-up IT means medics have more time to focus on patient care

---

Arnold Dillon, director, Retail Ireland, Ibec, believes Irish shoppers are very digitally savvy and that sometimes the slower adoption of technology is out of their hands. “In general, Irish consumers are tech-savvy and embrace new digital channels. It depends on the measures you’re looking at – Ireland is up at the top of online shoppers, smartphones and technology when it comes to EU benchmarks.

“The issue is, it’s a relatively small market compared to other major global markets. In some instances, it might mean when global corporations are rolling out products, they’re rolled in bigger markets first, which means it comes to Ireland a little later. This is not the case with all technology, of course, and additionally, Ireland is home to some of the major global technology companies that are keen to ensure the market they work in will also benefit from the products they use.”

Moving to the Metaverse?

The Metaverse is a fully immersive environment that is designed to mimic and/or enhance the real world but allows you to interact as you would in the real world, says Prior. “Augmented reality is designed to augment a real experience such as browsing a store with further information that can either be interacted with or not, to enhance the real-world experience.

“As a way of example, physical spaces are limited in space. As a retailer, we are constantly making decisions around what to display or not. Imagine a scenario where a customer is wearing Google Glass and as they look towards a mobile phone that they might have, the glass shows them who in their social media network has the same device, and offers them the ability to save the phone to their Wishlist. Now, imagine a scenario where the person can then look at another phone and the glass immediately compares the two mobile devices and gives the customer the option to see it in action.”

What’s the future for retailers?

While the use of online platforms to buy is steadily increasing and saw a dramatic increase during lockdowns and the pandemic overall, post-Covid consumers have broadly returned to in-store shopping, says Dillon. “We’ve actually seen a reset of that digital uptick during the pandemic, so the post-pandemic online trajectory is actually still the same as it was before.”

Omnichannel or multichannel shopping combines online and offline shopping to create the best experience for the shopper no matter where they shop. “For companies, it’s not a case of online versus brick and mortar, it’s using both well,” says Dillon. “It’s about ensuring the in-store offering is aligned with the various online offers across all digital marketing channels. For brick-and-mortar stores, it’s ensuring that your in-store offering offers more than online so that the experience and customer service complement each other. It’s important to prioritise customer service, logistics and fulfilment so customers get a really seamless experience.”