Question

Review the impact the Internet and digital space has had on traditional retail brands

Answer 1

Internet and digitalization have given a new channel of promoting and selling products to traditional retailers. The traditional retailers are either following the trend and adapting the digital platform to benefit from its perks or the ones still in the traditional patterns of retailing are facing loses hard time to attract customers and maintain their sales targets. E-commerce or digital retailing has helped brands to expand their business globally without physically setting their business different locations. This has helped them to attract more customers and hence increase their sales.

The space required for the e-commerce industry is very less compared to traditional selling which saves the cost. E-commerce does not require products to be displayed in the expensive ways in showrooms and only a simple place can be used as a warehouse to store the products displayed on websites of brands for customers to view and purchase. This helps brands to increase the variety and quantity of stock thus increase the scale of business.

Decreased costs through direct selling help in reducing prices on products which attracts more customers to buy products through online channels. The same product can cost more when gone through a number of channels and displayed in an expensive retail store than being available to the customer direct from the manufacturer or wholesaler through an online source.

Advertising and marketing have become simpler where brands are able to reach more customers through the internet medium. An ad when posted on a social media website can be visible to millions of users with a small premium payment made by the brand. Creating pages and groups for brand promotion also helps in connecting with the customers personally and improving products and services with their feedbacks.

Hence traditional brands have got many advantages and prospects of growth through internet and digital space but the brands who have not adapted the new trends of digitalization for their business have suffered damaged and failed businesses.