Data & Analytics

Last week, I looked at the top three trends that disrupted how retailers engage their customers during 2015. This week, I predict the top three trends that will set the course for customer engagement in 2016.

As Seen on TV

Smartwatch-based commerce only represents a sliver of total e-commerce, but that may soon be due for a change.

According to new research from Mintel, smartwatch sales are set to boom in the near future. While only 6% of Americans currently own a smartwatch, 21% of consumers who purchased a watch in the past 12 months say they are very interested in the smartwatch trend. And 24% of consumers have bought a watch in the past 12 months.

Mobile purchasing looks set for major growth in 2016.

According to new projections from Bizrate Insights, a division of Connextiy, based on month-over-month order volume in November 2015, mobile website purchases will increase by as much as 68% from 2015 to 2016. The peak volume during the 2016 holiday season may reach as high as 42%, nearly half of all online orders.

Christmas may have passed, but the holiday shipping surge continues

According to UPS, the holiday peak shipping season will extend well into the first week of the New Year. On Jan. 6, 2016 (National Returns Day) alone, consumers are expected to ship more than a million packages back to retailers. By the end of the first week of January, UPS expects to deliver more than 5 million return packages, an increase of 500,000 from the 2014-15 holiday returns season.

A planned expansion of Samsung Pay is the latest in a seemingly endless series of maneuvers made by mobile payment providers throughout 2015.

In an interview with Reuters, Thomas Ko, global co-manager of Samsung Pay, said U.S. consumers will be able to use the mobile wallet solution for online payments in 2016. In addition, Samsung will roll out Samsung Pay to a broader range of lower-priced phones in the U.S. in the coming year. Currently, it is only available as a built-in feature on the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge devices.

A new start-up, Optoro, is offering retailers alternative ways to sell their returned goods via a software platform that tracks returns, assesses, which channel is the most effective for each returned item, and routes products to those channels. While most retailers typically recover only about 20% to 40% of the retail cost of returned goods, Optoro helps companies recoup 50% to 70% of the cost, according to a report by the New York Times.

Retail business industry veteran Lawrence Jackson has been named to the board of directors of cloud-based enterprise retail technology provider Aptos Inc. (formerly Epicor Retail Solutions).

Staples Inc. is turning to Twitter to provide extra assistance for its small business customers.

Staples is preparing the launch of the #MoreSmallBiz Squad, a group of experts who will directly interact with small business customers through use of the #MoreSmallBiz hashtag. The experts will offer blog posts and other content, and also directly interact with small businesses who post questions on Twitter using the hashtag.