Happy Nice Mall

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Americans shopped online like crazy during the pandemic, right? Motivated by fear or comfort, many of us have become more comfortable by clicking “buy” on our sofas – including buying a sofa – and there is no turning back.

This is true. And also, well… no? Or maybe?

New data from the US government shows something that amazes me: Physical stores outpaced online shopping in 2021. It’s not a joke.

The U.S. Department of Commerce spent 18 percent more on food, cars, furniture, electronics and other retail products last year than in 2020. disclosure on Friday. Online retail sales increased 14 percent. In other words, e-commerce was replaced by traditional stores last year.

Admittedly, 2021 was a strange year for shopping. More of us have had the urge to peek in person than we did in the dire first months of Covid in the US. And one year doesn’t change the long-term trend that online shopping is grabbing more Americans’ wallets.

But the return of physical stores also points to the speed with which technologies are changing our behavior, and how difficult it can be to predict if and when they change their impact. The future does not necessarily come in a straight line.

My purpose is not limited to shopping. One of the biggest controversies for our economies and our lives is that the coronavirus and its digital adaptations can permanently change all aspects of it, including how we spend our time. the future of office work, Go to cinema and exercise habits. The honest answer is that we really don’t know. A lot has changed, but not much has changed.

Brian Wieser It’s one of my favorite number nerds, and it alerted me to the fact that physical stores were winning in 2021. Wieser, global head of business intelligence at advertising firm GroupM, said he started zooming out in two-year blocks. It’s time to assess the devastating effects of the pandemic on businesses and us.

Wieser described what he saw as a “new plateau” – the pandemic has accelerated digital trends that are already taking place and taking our usage to a higher level. Many people who study human behavior have similarly talked about the ways we become familiar with e-commerce, remote work, telemedicine, and online socialization that might not have happened without a pandemic in 2025 or later.

Wieser’s data shows that we increased our online shopping more in 2020 and 2021 than in any two-year period since 2006. Amazon and Walmart also encouraged their investors to look at two-year timeframes. At Amazon, this may have been partly due to lackluster sales. In the last six months of 2021, Amazon Slowest revenue growth rate in 20 years.

Juozas KaziukėnasA few months ago, the founder of e-commerce research firm Marketplace Pulse asked me a question I can’t forget: Has the coronavirus really forced us to shop more online – or just more shopping period?

It’s a confusing time to consider what technology is changing within us. Wieser’s visual metaphor of a plateau is helpful. Perhaps we have reached a new level of familiarity with and use of technologies. This does not mean that we can predict where we will go from this new perch.

we (me included) still terrible at predicting the future of technology and how people and societies respond to it. Sometimes there is a new application that we can’t get enough of, Instagram. this is Ello. (Don’t you remember Ello? Exactly.)

And human behavior can slowly change to the point where it suffocates us. We may feel like online shopping is ubiquitous, but even now more than 85 cents of every retail dollar in the US is spent in physical stores.

So which one? Is online shopping the future of how we buy and exchange everything or is it relatively a small change with huge ripple effects. Yup.

Before you go …

• this web search service DuckDuckGo Winning endorsements as Google alternative from right-wing social media influencers and conspiracy theoristsmy colleague Stuart A. Thompson reports.

• 10 breakthrough technologies of 2022: MIT Technology Review selected a factory that cleans carbon dioxide from the air, improved methods to track Covid-19 derivatives, and other innovations.

• At least the dog loves Amazon’s home robot: Six months ago, Amazon unveiled an experimental $1,000 Alexa on wheels called Astro. The device has so far only been available to a select group, and Bloomberg News I found an Astro buyer He said he and his Labrador dog had fun with the device, but were not impressed. (A subscription may be required).

hug this

A raccoon mates on his canine friend. I imagine a sweet back story for these two.

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