Will E-Commerce Kill Brick and Mortar Shops?
Thanks to the massive uptake and incorporation of ecommerce into most businesses, there is a general belief and feeling that ecommerce will eventually kill brick and mortar shops. In 2017, more than 78% of all registered businesses in America had a website and 65% offered some form of ecommerce. This is a telling sign!
A lot of businesses in America, as the numbers above suggest, have embraced technology to manage their inventories, receive orders for their products and services, process transactions and facilitate shipping of the various products and services.
On the consumer side, the numbers are on the rise as well. As of January 2017, 1 in every 3 adult Americans had ordered a product or a service online and the numbers are anticipated to go up by two fold in the next five years. This shows that consumers are embracing technology as well and are accepting ecommerce as the modern day form of trading.
Now that both the sellers and the consumers seem to have a liking for ecommerce, will it kill brick and mortar shops? Will ecommerce eventually replace ecommerce and the old school traditional commerce?
Will E-Commerce Kill Brick and Mortar Shops?
To imagine that ecommerce will one day completely replace brick and mortar shops, is a forgivable premature assumption. Forgivable because the trend seems to be pointing towards that assertion but premature because brick and mortar sales in America are still outnumbering online sales of any form.
Although ecommerce complements brick and mortar business incredibly well, it will never quite replace the latter and without a proper set up in the brick and mortar, chances of ecommerce thriving are very minimal. The two have a facultative symbiotic relationship where ecommerce benefits the most from the brick and mortar but can barely thrive on its own.
With the increase in the number of businesses and consumers that embrace technology, it is true that the interactions between the seller and buyer will significantly reduce but will never be completely wiped. Here are reasons why ecommerce will never kill brick and mortar shops completely;
Why ecommerce can’t kill brick and mortar shops completely
Although ecommerce will reduce the number of physical interactions and the hustle of buyers having to go physically to the shop to buy whatever they are looking for, it is impossible for ecommerce to completely replace the brick and mortar. There are some aspects of business which ecommerce might help wipe out eventually but there are others which will forever remain because of the human nature.
Nature of service offered
There are things which you can’t just order online without going to the seller of the product or service. A good example is a medical clinic or a consultant running an online clinic. Although it is possible to reduce the need for meetings at all times, there will come a time when the patient will need to physically be present in the clinic for the doctor or physician to administer the treatment.
Appeal of shopping in brick and mortar shops
There is also the aspect of human interaction and the joy of going on a shopping spree. There is a lot of joy and appeal in going to a store or a mall to shop for groceries and other supplies in the house. It gives us a good chance to take a break from our daily lives and spend some quality time with our families while shopping. However much you enjoy ordering supplies through a mobile ad, the thrill will never quite beat the feeling of pushing a cart in a store while checking out some other cool stuff in there.
Machines and robots can replace human completely
Ecommerce especially by giants like eBay and Amazon, is largely dominated by robots and other automated systems. Whereas the do a pretty good job in warehouses and stores, there are some human aspects needed even in ecommerce which the robots can quite manage-at least for now. This therefore means that human staff will for a very long time be required and the brick and mortar shops won’t be closed any time soon.
Technology might make our shopping life easier but this does not mean that it will replace the traditional commerce mode which all humans seem to enjoy however tedious it might look. For the two modes of commerce to succeed, businesses must strike a fine balance between offering innovative ecommerce solutions and maintaining the traditional brick and mortar model which people can identify with.
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