Unique digital user numbers to surpass three billion

Users of digital commerce services will reach three billion by 2021, or 40% of the global population, up from 32% this year, according to Juniper Research. 

Significant opportunity exists for retailers, with remote payments for digital and physical goods forecast to account for over 10% of the $20 trillion global retail market in 2017. Juniper’s study found that businesses will gain advantage through use of automated customer experiences. With product search and discovery a key stage in the shopper journey, merchants must adopt conversational interfaces to drive customer engagement and, ultimately, sales. 

Juniper Research’s Lauren Foye says: “Chatbots and natural language search can greatly improve retailer understanding of consumer behaviour, so we are witnessing growth in this sector, for example investment by Facebook and Google, as well as the launch of digital assistants by companies such as Amazon.”