The Signal: Coronavirus has changed a lot about the way we live, work, and shop. As one example, a recent consumer survey found that 7-20% of buyers in different age groups are planning to sign up for more product subscriptions to manage purchasing in the wake of the issues caused by the pandemic. That, combined with other changes in buyer behavior, is ushering in a paradigm-shifting possibility in the way we do business: acommerce.

Acommerce, or automated commerce, is the next evolution of retail in which companies use connected (IoT) devices to monitor customer activity and automatically ship products before buyers ever realize they need something.

Think a printer that automatically orders ink when levels get low, or a Nespresso that sends your favorite coffee pods straight to your door when it knows you’re nearly out.