The impact of digital disruption technologies on customer preferences: The case of retail commerce

Abstract

Consumer preferences which include likes, dislikes, motivations, dispositions are influenced by many factors. In association with needs, these preferences define a customer’s behavior towards goods or services. In recent years, there has been a tremendous shift in customer behavior and the reason for the same can be attributed to the digital technologies. These technologies are compelling the businesses to rapidly change to remain relevant in the market. On the supply side, Social media, Mobility, Artificial Intelligence, Analytics or Big Data, Cloud infrastructure, IoT, Augmented reality and Virtual reality (AR/VR) are creating opportunities for existing enterprises to transform as well as new pure digital enterprises to be born. On the demand side, it's vital to understand the impact these technologies have on customer preferences for the appropriate marketing strategy to be developed. The same technologies are available to customers too in some form or other. This paper looks at the impact of the disruptive digital technologies on customer preferences and the resulting change in customer behaviour at two levels. It captures the results of the study on customer preferences towards online shopping. It also elaborates on the changes in the preferences with digital technologies. It clubs the customer preferences in three groups aligned with phases in purchase process. The paper also looks at the possible future evolution of technology and its impact on customer preferences. In this paper, intrinsic considerations are for the retail industry. Retail firms in this day and age have a golden opportunity to use technology to understand consumers in more meaningful ways.