Market researcher Euromonitor International released its Top Five Digital Consumer Trends in 2024, a report today focused on evolving priorities and behaviors among online consumers as well as technological advances, including those in augmented reality and artificial intelligence, likely to affect the year ahead.
According to Euromonitor, the Top Five Digital Consumer Trends in 2024 are:
- Intuitive E-Commerce. The rising consumer focus on digital channels is pressuring companies to improve the online experience. As such, companies are embracing evolving data-gathering strategies and emerging technologies from AR to GenAI to IoT. Tech advances could potentially transform the online shopping experience by making it more intuitive.
- TikTok Economy. Digital consumers increasingly engage with TikTok and Douyin, social media platforms that have embraced short-form video content. Brands are promoting products and services on such platforms. Yet some of the viral trends that are boosting brand sales have been emerging organically from social media users, without any direct brand involvement, as they incorporate various items and services into their online presentations.
- Outsmart Online. In an economy that still prompts some consumer uncertainty and is changing under the influence of digitalization, shoppers are seeking out online platforms dedicated to rooting out the best deals. More consumers are using such platforms in ways that brands do not intend or necessarily want.
- Recommerce 2.0. Recommerce is gaining and evolving, driven by environmentally conscious, thrifty and tech-savvy younger consumers. Brands and retailers that recognize the potential of the market are actively adopting strategies to capitalize on it, making recommerce more widely accessible across product categories.
- Revamped Return. Converging trends such as the rise of e-commerce, store closures and more sustainable strategies make returns a bitter retail and brand priority. New technologies and partnerships are emerging that can pave the way to a better return experience for shoppers.
Michelle Evans, global lead of retail and digital insights at Euromonitor, said in announcing the trend report, “The online shopping experience continues to mature. Euromonitor saw this theme play a prominent role in three of our 2023 trends, and we see it again this year. The use of emerging technologies like generative AI will make online shopping feel more like the in-person shopping experience, as explored in Intuitive E-Commerce. The evolution of recommerce and the borrowing of wider e-commerce strategies also speaks to this greater sophistication. Cautious and conscious consumption is growing. The cost of a purchase, whether that cost is monetary or environmental, was top of mind for digital consumers in 2023 and will continue to be in 2024. Saving money is playing out in how consumers are seeking to outsmart brands online or join the resale movement.
Evans added, “Consumers are also seeking more power in their relationships with brands. This is prevalent in both the TikTok Economy and Outsmart Online trends, which, at their roots, are about how consumers are using social media to give them a greater voice in the consumer-brand relationship. The benefit of hearing from consumers over the brands is that it leads to more authentic interactions, which is valued by younger consumers like Gen Z.”
