business feature
Retailers will need to ready themselves for new areas of opportunity as 2015, a year of great technology leaps, comes to a close. WORDS BY JAMIE SORCHER
F
rom the rebounding economy to falling gas prices, the year 2015 is almost in the books. When it kicked off last January at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the automotive and aftermarket mobile industries were front and center setting the scene for what has been an interesting year. Driverless cars, gesture control, and Apple or Android autos were all major trends in the spotlight then and have
14 Mobile Electronics December 2015
remained so. They will likely make bold headlines again at the upcoming CES next month. While it is too early to tell what the key disrupters for the tech industry will be in 2016, one thing is certain: the landscape for the consumer electronics industry—and for aftermarket mobile electronics—is rapidly changing. Mobile electronics retailers face the continuing question of whether to develop omni-channel strategies as
e-commerce evolves and challenges brickand-mortar businesses. There is no doubt that social media and mobile are going to play an even larger role in the consumer shopping experience for 2016 and beyond. One of the big reasons is the increasing importance of the millennials (those who are ages 18 to 34), a large market segment who are heavily influencing retail. Millennials are also the largest group of smartphone owners and they’re accustomed to purchasing without delay—click