63% of retailers expect to adopt 5G to improve the online shopping experience

The turmoil in 2020 is accelerating digital transformation, and the entire retail industry will achieve growth in 2021. Industry insiders said that 5G technology will bring relatively positive changes to the retail industry in the short and long term.

Many retailers are investing in 5G to improve consumers' online and in-store shopping experiences. Among them, retailers' AR/VR applications and payment systems will be the top priority for change. Store operations such as inventory management and fulfillment can be enhanced by investing in store data analytics and Internet of Things (IoT) systems, including computer vision systems.

According to Splunk's survey data in January 2020, 21% of retail IT and business managers around the world said their organizations are currently using 5G services. And about 63% of retailers said they expect their companies to adopt 5G services in the future. In fact, with the development of modern network technology, 5G services are likely to be the general trend.

However, the retail industry seems to be on par with other industries in terms of using 5G services, and will keep pace with manufacturing, financial services, healthcare and the public sector in future implementation. Industry insiders said that retailers' overall view on 5G is mainly about how online shopping and in-store shopping will evolve after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, and whether the boundaries between digital shopping and physical shopping will become increasingly blurred.

In the United States, e-commerce has really taken off in 2020, with online sales accounting for 20% to 30% of total retail sales. However, e-commerce development in some countries, such as Latin America, has just begun, and there is still a lot of room for future development. Some relatively mature retailers tend to use various methods to improve consumers' shopping experience.

With the development of basic technologies such as the Internet and smartphones, global e-commerce is growing even faster. More and more consumers are accustomed to online shopping, and consumers are also interacting with fulfillment centers and physical retailers through similar video streaming and social media. Wireless 5G can establish an invisible and seamless connection between online physical retail and digital retail, which will bring more development opportunities to e-commerce.

5G

Online shopping experience

Retailers