Just a couple of years ago it was unthinkable to order the products you wanted to buy directly on your smartphone. Today, that’s just reality.

Not to mention the fact that these products, ordered with today’s technology, are being delivered at your door the next day.

From small markets to supermarkets, from waiting in line to buy your items to “no queues and no checkout” concept that Amazon released it last year, a lot has changed in this domain in a decade.

• Malls and supermarkets have released special apps in order to help customers make decisions when it comes to the products they intend to purchase.

• with Amazon Go, the whole shopping experience happens on your phone

• MyCarrefour is an application that enables customers to quickly find information on supermarket promotions but also to organize more efficiently their shopping lists

• Bringo is a company in Romania that helps you do your shopping directly from your smartphone and then bring them home

World Economic Forum tried to respond the question that is on everybody’s mind: how shopping will look like ten years from now?

And here are some plausible possibilities:

1. Sensors and digital devices will create a hyper-personalized customer experience. Customers’ online activity and years of past purchase data will generate personalized suggestions
2. Roles not “customer facing” – like shelf stacking – will be automated.
3. Online sales will grow from around 10% today to 40% in 2027. In some sectors the figure will be well above 50%

• This statistic shows the mobile commerce revenue worldwide from 2013 to 2018 [source]

4. The number of jobs in retail will fall significantly
5. Routine household purchases will be automatically delivered. Driverless trucks or drones ill do much of the work
6. The trend away from huge stores will continue. Customers continue to value smaller, more specialist outlets
7. 3D printing will enable shops to create items on demand. This should enable many new, smaller companies to enter the market
8. Virtual reality will change both the shop and home experience. Potential buyers will be able to browse virtual stock before buying

This last point, VR related, was debated at ICEEfest last year, especially when we talked about the app (powered by Innovation.rocks) that transforms your home into a virtual showroom.

• Welcome into the showrooms of the future. How VR & AR will change the way we buy cars

Now, we’ll upgrade the discussion in order to see which of the points above are implementable in the near future on the CEE market. Of course, all with some help from top specialists by the retail business.

This article is brought to you by Carrefour, the gourmet and tech partner of iCEE.fest 2017.