Technology has had a huge impact on all walks of life. But one area where it has a revolutionary impact is the way we shop. Nowadays, a huge portion of the population takes care of all of their shopping needs through the online world.

The World Wide Web has become synonymous with online shopping and free shipping. Businesses are running websites where the cost of the operation is significantly less than those of running a physical store.

With this comes an added bonus of flexibility. Namely, you don’t need to go to work to sell anymore. And there are a lot more ways of how technology revolutionizes the way we shop. So, we figured we’d tell you about some of them.

Not to take too much of your time, here are our 5 ways how technology impacts the way we shop.

1. Online Shopping

We touched on this briefly, but what better way to start than to finish what we already started?

Truthfully speaking, online shopping increases the quality of life as it makes things more convenient. You don’t have to run to the store to buy something; you can do that straight from the comfort of your home.

And online shopping offers far more than being a convenient method of buying the things we need. It gives you options to choose from, prices to compare, and even read what others have to say about the particular product that you’re buying.

It’s something that has revolutionized the way we shop and places the foundations for so much more.

2. Analytics

Running behavioral analytics is all made possible due to technology. But we wouldn’t have needed to run such analytics if we didn’t have the foundation for it.

And if we’re honest about it, it’s all because of online shopping. Since online shopping is done through a website, we can monitor that website and see who visits our store, what they do, and what they buy.

With so much data on the line, it would work against your favor not to do it. It’s safe to say that this has been the turning point for many online businesses.

By having the means to track, record, and monitor data, these businesses can perfect their digital marketing campaigns and give people what they truly want.

Analytics is all about data, and we all know how valuable it is.

3. Coupons and Discounts

The World Wide Web is an awesome place to find literary anything we want. And it’s also a great place to go bargain hunting. There are a couple of ways how shoppers can look for the lowest possible prices and find discounts for the things they want.

One of the best ways is to use coupons and look for discounts. Coupons are used to knock off some percentage of the price or to include stuff like free shipping with your order.

These are heavily used and some of the best ways to attract customers. They’re a byproduct of technology and a good one for that matter.

There are tons of ways to find coupons to use in your favorite stores. We recommend going to couponxoo.com as they have a pretty huge arsenal of stores.

4. Pricing Strategies

This one is closely tied to behavioral analytics as it gives businesses a general idea of what products people are interested in. And the more people are interested or disinterested in certain products, well the higher the chance for businesses to modify their pricing strategy.

Supply and demand is the foundation of retail. And for many of these businesses, supply and demand is a tricky thing to calculate. Luckily, this is where analytics come into play.

By using real-time data and metrics that determine how likely people are going to be interested in buying a product, we can make certain buying predictions.

Once these predictions come to fruition, we can then adjust the price by using dynamic pricing strategies. Dynamic pricing strategies are very simple. The more a product gets sold, the more the price gets increased to prevent total depletion.

The less a product gets sold, the more the price gets lowered to increase demand. But these are just the basics. Both internal and external factors play a huge role. Some of the external factors of dynamic pricing include competition, while we already discussed some of the internal.

5. AI

AI (artificial intelligence) is considered as the most advanced out of all technological advancements in retail and shopping. Why? Well, if you’d stop listening top wacky, Terminator-style conspiracy theories then you’ll just about see what AI does for this industry.

Namely, as much as 85% of all online shoppers interact with AI. And that includes all people in these conspiracy circles. Interacting with AI can be as insignificant as enquiring about a product on a website or conversing with a chatbot.

But AI does far more than that. AI is responsible for you having an awesome time whilst online shopping. This technology is specialized for customer satisfaction and with other things as well.

Among these other things, it also specializes in giving you options. AI is responsible for influencing your buying decision by giving you what you love the most based on your behavior.

But these are all customer-centered benefits. What about business-centered ones?

Well, first and foremost, AI managed to singlehandedly automate retail businesses. It allows retail business owners to lay back and let the computer do all the work for them. This includes processing of payments, preventing fraudulent payments, automatic restock tickets, and so much more.

A huge example of AI integration within retail is Amazon’s Alexa. This is a virtual assistant that can buy things for you on Amazon only by giving it voice commands.

Conclusion

Technology has had a huge impact not only on the way we shop but on the industry as a whole. It gives both retail business owners and customers alike clear and obvious benefits that are very difficult to dispute.

Technology takes the buying process and makes it that more convenient for every party involved.