Question

The landscape of distribution is changing as more shoppers are utilizing online retailers and less brick and mortar retail establishments. Provide an example of when you used to shop at a physical store but now purchase that product online. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each. Do you think all products lend themselves to being purchased online? Be sure to also provide an example of an online retailer and your experience with a positive and/or negative shipping situation. Can you think of an example of a retail establishment that is closing its physical location?

Answer 1

Clothings are most common example of commodities which the people prefer buying from online stores. Some five years back, I liked to shop from high street fashion stores, finding bargains during end of season sale twice a year, one during summer and the other during winters. The advent of online shopping has made it possible to own brands which were out of budget at that time. The biggest advantage I see, is the huge choice available to be delivered right at the time and place convenient for me, convenience of easy returns if I don't like the item, and prices that are very attractive. Another advantage is of favourable payment options, and product offers which are available all round the year. The negatives are that I end up spending too much time to find the right item and purchasing too many, and often unnecessary items leading to overspending at disturbing my budget. Another limitation with the option is that one needs to wait for at least a day for the item to be delivered, which makes it unsuitable when you need the item urgently. Sometimes it becomes difficult to know the exact form, color and quality of clothing, with images available- a point where traditional retailing scores over e - retail.

The items where customer knows the product well, are more suitable for online purchases, but the items which need careful scrutiny, high value items or urgently needed ones better purchased in person.

One of my bad experience is with a lesser known online retailer which uploaded some very good images of high quality clothing on its website. Till now, I always purchased from well known online retailers with fair terms, but somehow fell for this site. The item delivered to me was pathetic and did not meet the original description. Tyhere was a return policy, but it took me months to return the item. I had to pay for postages- a condition which was written in fine print, which was barely readable. This was a bad experience after which I made it a point to buy from well known retailers.

I know many traditional stores that are on verge of closure due to non availability of customers ( most of them have switched to online shopping). Most of such stores are in high street shopping plazas where fixed cost of running is very high, and the income from business has been on decline for past few years. Some have adopted a hybrid model of order online - collect from store, or completely switched over to online format.