The End of the Retail?
There’s an exciting and yet burdensome dilemma in the E-commerce: “Omni-channel dilemma”. It is derived from the customers’ interest in diversifying their buy-channels. Online stores, social media, different apps. Because of the broadening online customer share, many brick-and-mortar businesses get digitalized or bankrupt. BI Intelligence forecasts that digital retail sales will reach $632 billion by 2020.
Who’s going online?
F.e. 1: Nordstrom, an American chain of the department stores, has over 25% of the company’s full-priced sales online from Nordstrom.com.
F.e. 2: Using Apple’s Passbook (now Apple Wallet) Neiman Marcus, an American department store, tested Bluetooth beacons in three stores last year that help guide customers to in-store sales. They managed to successfully combine the E-comm opportunities with the retail business.
“First and foremost, we’re interested in technology that adds value for the customer. My mantra is, does this solve a real problem for my customer, or does this enhance the relationship between Neiman Marcus and the customer?” — said Scott Emmons, enterprise architect of Neiman Marcus’ innovation lab to eMarketer.
Digital technology is transforming the market landscape, no doubt. But there are hurdles. Logistics and online operating costs aggravate for the E-com businesses. Ship-from-store is one option to consider for E-com, however, it is followed by the need of the robust financial calculation of the opportunities. Some nice financial estimations specifically for the e-commerce ideas can be seen here.
How do you think, is the 21st century signifies the end of the retail? :)
