By 2021, You May Make Most Of Your Online Purchases Straight From Your Smartphone
I’d like to make a quick trip back to 1988, grab a handful of folks, and time-travel-machine them to today. This way they can observe what’s happening on a random New York City subway car in 2018. What would they make of the passengers lining the Q train’s bench, all with their heads bowed, alternately tapping on, and gazing into, a mysterious rectangular object clutched in their hands, faces illuminated by a bluish light? Now fast forward to 2021. By then, subways will be Wi-Fi connected. Oh, joy! Can’t wait to hear all the chattering of riders’ smartphone conversations! (Not.) One man from the future utters into his cell, “houndstooth silk tie: Checking out,” buying from Walmart’s fancy time Lord & Taylor site. The scenario imagines what was unimaginable in 1988. By 2021, more consumers will be doing their online shopping from those mysterious rectangular objects, their smartphones, than their desktop or laptop computers, eMarketer forecasts. Indeed, in three years, retail m-commerce on smartphones and tablets will generate an estimated $420.2 billion in sales, surpassing the $359.4 billion in e-commerce sales from desktops and laptops, according to the research firm. Read more at Forbes.
