Everybody likes predictions, and with the recent U.S economic crisis in mind, it can be helpful in more ways than one to lean back a bit and read about the future of retail in 2015 – the time when pet stores will boom, and e-Commerce will score big time in terms of mass-revenue.

“…American consumers have made significant shifts in what they buy and watch,” says Nielsen in a recent report.  From planning their shopping trips to focusing on value to trading down to going out less and staying in more, consumers have pressed the reset button and fundamentally changed their habits.”

In addition to the customer side, retailers and manufactures also embraced a new approach to sustaining themselves as normally (and profitably) as possible. This of course, involves a lot of technology and modernization, which had helped Nielsen to put together a list of 10 things one would encounter in a retailer store by 2015.

This includes the very observable point that eStores, eShops and eMegamalls will thrive, prediction grocery stores will gain shares, implementation of kiosks, media and holograms will spread (plus, they’ll be self-serving); pet stores and dollar stores will boom; smartphones will take the significant portion of shopper engagements.

All of the above are definitely not misguided in their context, but truth is, nobody knows.  The next big thing can come up any day now, and chances are the next PC, Smartphone, Packman and square-shaped CD will have the capacity to change a whole lot, even outside the retail sector.