The retail market landscape has significantly changed over time due to the digitalization of shopping and the shifting in consumers’ buying behavior. Presently, consumers have a low level of attention spans, use peer recommendations, and conduct comprehensive research before resorting to making purchases.
Establishing a unified and seamless experience between brick and mortar and digital channels gives market retailers a competitive advantage in the world’s present digital economy. Transformations in the digital era have created current opportunities for traditional retailers to make the overall shopping experience better for customers. Several retail chains pin their hopes on seasons of sales and struggle when sales results fail to live up to their expectations.
Perils of Commodity Sellers
Retailers appear to be most in peril selling commodities. For example, music shops that sell DVDs and discs in Blu-ray format, while selling in the shop can also sell them online. Consumers have become far savvier about buying products conveniently. Unless retailers selling in a brick and mortar retail shops adapt to selling online, they will go out of business.
Shop, Mobile, and Online
The comparison of mobiles, online platforms, and retail shop access for the people looking for purchasing something they often research for by accessing online sources and checking the latest prices of mobiles and other electronic gadgets, and they prefer to go for shopping. This transformation is something people have got used to it.
Developing away from Commodity Selling
There is no need to evolve away from selling commodities. Many retail shops that survive for a long time are that those that sell specialty items. For instance, the comic book shops which contain rare editions at premium prices will likely survive in the long term because they have limited, one of a kind commodities.
While selling these types of items online is possible, many buyers want to see them in person.
But, retailers who are dealing with the growing digital era should accept that many products can be bought online instead of compelling the consumer to purchase the products in person. While the prices may not be lower when selling in postage or packaging, for consumers getting free shipping service via Alibaba or Amazon, it will be tougher to match their prices. Retailers are supposed to provide a friendly retail environment and useful online experiences to meet the customers’ demands whenever they decide to lock down the sale.
Both Amazon and Walmart are realizing that the future state of global retail commerce, both offline and online, is more than merely a world of distribution hegemony, where every kind of brand has been reduced to conforming products and always at low prices.
Present Scenario
What makes the situation a bit more difficult is the fact that people live in a vacuum. Traditional retail in the present circumstances needs to pick the best location for establishing stores, keep up with consumers’ expectations about what the experience of in-store should be, and get more good at e-commerce strategies.
Therefore, rather than concentrating merely on one channel, market retail shops need to shift their focus to optimizing their physical store portfolios. Meanwhile, they should improve their online presence by keeping savvy employees who can expertly handle online platform. Also, retailers need to adjust how they view the value of their physical stores.
Brick and mortar retail stores make capture sales in today’s market. However, they also need to create values by advancing towards digital online sales. It means that the value of a particular store for retailers and consumers is higher than the sales they captured within them. Thus, just as consumers’ shopping behavior has changed over time, the sales and value needs of retailers also need to evolve, so that both the consumers’ easiness and retailers’ sales targets go hand in hand with each other by leaps and bounds.
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