Moving from traditional retailing to worldwide online shopping

Oct 31
10:36

2012

Kim Hyo Yeon

Kim Hyo Yeon

  • Share this article on Facebook
  • Share this article on Twitter
  • Share this article on Linkedin

The fact remains that even after so many years of worldwide online shopping; traditional retailers are still lagging behind in embracing the digital technologies.

mediaimage

The retailers today have to move away from metrics such as same store sales. Rather,Moving from traditional retailing to worldwide online shopping Articles they need to focus on measures like the return on invested capital. Traditional retailers also need to transform their store from a liability to an asset. In fact, they need to make shopping entertaining, exciting, as well as emotionally engaging for the customer.

Basically, the retailer today needs to focus on what all worldwide online shopping is offering to a customer. This would include an abundance of information besides perfect price transparency. Also on offer are a bouquet of special deals and much more.

Basically, such kinds of shake-ups in retailing are happening all the time. Even though this does not eliminate what had come before it, but it will definitely reshape the landscape. It will redefine the expectations of the customer. Thus the retailers who were relying on the earlier formats will have to either adapt to this change or they will die out since the new ones will pull volume from their stores and take away their profitability.

Today the economic reality is well established that e-commerce is reaching for a much large share in retail revenue.

It is important to note that what we are seeing today is just the beginning. It is soon going to be hard even to define what is e-commerce and impossible to measure it. This is because once a customer goes to a store and finds that the required product is out of stock, he/she would be able to use an in-store terminal and have another location deliver it to her/his home. Even if the customer is shopping in one store, he can always uses his smartphone to find lower prices at another, and then is able to orders it electronically for an in-store pickup. Also, there is already the option of gifts that are ordered online but which can be exchanged at a local store. After all, digital information is already influencing store sales in a big way, and the numbers are growing rapidly too.

Online shopping is already big business, and it is growing rapidly too. This indicates that the concerns of retailers that were discussed earlier are now being addressed well by the industry. Also, people would not be shopping online this way if they had no trust in it. And the most profound impact of worldwide online shopping is in changing of the behaviour of the consumer in the real world.