If you’ve been watching the news out of The Retail Big Show, you've been hearing about omnichannel, big data and the Internet of Things. Now that the show is over, don’t forget to follow @SASRetail on Twitter for continued retail news, and watch the SAS Marketing Insights Center for coverage of the presentations I attended from eBay, Chico’s, Brooks Brothers and Macys.com.

Here on the Customer Analytics Blog, I wanted to give you an exclusive on some long-term retail predictions we gathered when we asked retailers to look five to ten years into the future and give us one prediction about where the industry is heading:

1. Global availability of almost anything. Gayatri Patel, eBay’s Director of Global Data Infrastructure, says she expects the global aspect of retail to continue to grow. “The omnichannel environment is important because it’s global,” she says. “This will continue to give consumers access to goods and services they never had before. It will become easier to drop and ship across any site, with the flow of traffic locally and internally. How we exchange goods and services will have to simplify, and the inventory of products available to us will continue to broaden.
2. Near real-time delivery. Sahal Laher, Brooks Brothers Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer, predicts an increase in the real-time nature of customer demand. “We have a new partnership with Uber using their courier side of the business to make same-day deliveries within New York City.” As mobile continues to grow and the demand for same-day delivery grows, this market will spread to more cities, says Laher.
3. In-home manufacturing. Eric Singleton, Chico’s Chief Information Officer is looking at 3D printing and similar technologies. He says, “I predict a tremendous rise of in-home manufacturing. It won’t replace all products but it will be nothing to produce a range of products in the home. That may sound very futuristic, but a decade’s a long time.”

What do you think? Are our experts on mark – or being somewhat fanciful? What will you look forward to manufacturing at home, and what do you wish you could have delivered within a day? Tell us in the comments.