WEST PALM BEACH, FL. January 28, 2021 – Today, Future Commerce announces the release of its Vision 2021 report, pinpointing ten emergent trends that shape how consumers interact with the world around us related to retail, cultural shifts, and technological modernity. The report uncovers the top projected areas of consumer engagement in 2021 and beyond, as well as a look back at 2020 and what drove these shifts in behavior during a year where consumers spent more time online than ever before.

At this moment, the world is adapting to a new normal. The masses are longing for the spotlight while accruing ever more items. All of this and more has taken shape on a new accelerated timeline where the changes are as rapid as their implications are profound. What is to come and how can brands meaningfully shape the future that we all will inherit? 

The Vision 2021 Report tackles these questions and more – key components include:

Consumer

  • The Rise of Maximalism – Consumers are taking things to extremes and the absurd. The desire for more, not less, is winning the battle of our psyches.
  • Shopping as Entertainment – Physical shopping is a group activity; digital commerce is not. Shopping will have to be relational, fun, engaging, replacing, and keep our attention.
  • Brands as Performance Art – The intersectionality of meme culture, hype culture, and get-rich-quick schemes are manifesting in brand performance art.
  • The Product Eternal – Consumers now care what happens to their product after it dies. The new circular economy is delegating who they now choose to buy from. 

Culture

  • Digital Dysmorphia: The Selfie Industrial Complex – Consumers are more aware of their features and flaws than ever, and marketers have new insights into how to sell to them. 
  • Brands and the Widening Class Schism – Call it what you will, the “K-shape recovery” will spur further disparity between luxury and mass-market experiences. 
  • The Death and Rebirth of Neutrality – It’s impossible to be impartial now. Lines have been drawn, and consumers are demanding that corporations take political sides. 

Modernity

  • The Age of Fractional Ownership – What started with high-value tangible assets now has mass accessibility. Consumers can own infinitesimally small pieces of, well, anything.
  • Capitalism and the Digital Commons – The lack of common spaces and increasing physical isolation is leading to growth of one-on-one interactions via digital channels.
  • Convergence of the Meta and the Physical – Place is no longer just physical. Meta-places and meta-people re-inspired an anti-skeuomorphic digital world. 

"With COVID-19, we’ve all turned to digital as our primary and preferred means of engaging with the world,” says Phillip Jackson, Co-Founder of Future Commerce. “Generations to come will marvel at the distinguished difference between pre-pandemic and post-pandemic consumerism – and especially at the brands that effectively reinvented themselves to meet the transformed needs of their audiences.”

To explore the full report, please visit https://futurecommerce.com/vision. 

Methodology:

Broad consumer research was fielded in January 2021. It included a nationally representative sample of consumers, and the sample size was n=1093. This study was conducted in partnership with Method + Mode research. Our research was compiled by the Future Commerce team over a period of 3 months ending January 2021. It included the feedback of our Future Commerce Expert Network, a group of expert retail and brand operators.

About Future Commerce:

Future Commerce is a research and media company that is dedicated to the discovery and exchange of ideas that lead to future-altering outcomes for us and the world around us. We offer a vertically oriented podcast that's specific to the world of retail, trusted by nearly 20,000 people on a monthly basis, along with programming centered across many verticals, with a unique voice and a diverse group of contributors, viewpoints, and opinions trusted by millions.

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