Chapter 9 - Viurtual Shops Winning over Bricks-and-mortar shops?

Summary
In America, the holiday shopping season is on November 27th of this year and customers were outside the stores before dawn to be their first to lay their hands on heavily discounted merchandise. The recession appears to have accelerated the pace at which shoppers are abandoning bricks and mortar and turning to online retailers. Due to this problem, many conventional retailers attempts to regain the initiative.
Online retailing has its positive side, in which buyers could avoid paying local sales taxes and shipping is often free. Thanks to online retailing, America are expected to decline more than 3% this year compared to online sales, which grew by 13% in 2008 and are predicted to grow by 11% in 2009, according to Forrester, a consultancy. Online retailing counts as 6% of all retail sales, and it is expected to reach 8% by 2013. E-commerce is also growing in Europe, Asia and Britain with Internet shopping now accounts for nearly 4% of total retail sales.

Many online-only shopping sites such as Amazon and eBay have thrived in the downturn. Amazon's sales rose and eBay crashing due to many customers surging really rapidly. It is also that Amazon is starting to sell groceries. Many consumer-goods companies such as Procter & Gamble (P&G) are encouraging the sale of things like nappies (diapers) and laundry detergent online. Internet is also being used to sell luxury goods. Some stores even decide to not open any shops but instead operating a shop online.

One of the major problems for brick-and-mortar retailers, whose prices are often higher than those of e-retailers, since they must bear the extra expense of running stores. Some stores, such as Saks and Target, have recently reported rising revenues and margins.

"Multichannel" shopping is where people can buy the same items from the same retailers in several different ways-online, via their mobile phones and in shops- and they are gaining ground and retailers are trying to encourage users to use one channel to try another. Due to online retailing is growing, it may cause increase in sales for stores as well. according to a spokesman for Macy's, a department-store chain, every dollar a consumer spends online with Macy's leads to $5.70 in spending at a Macy's store within ten days. Retailers are also trying to make shopping seem fun and exciting to counteract the economic gloom. One common one is to set up "pop-up" stores, which appear for a short time before vanishing again, to a foster a sense of novelty and urgency. Jack Anderson of Hornall Anderson, a branding and marketing firm, and are no longer interesting in purely "transaction-based bricks and mortar stores". Apple, which encourages customers to try out its devices in its stores, is considered a pioneer of this strategy,and has attracted many imitators. the Walt Disney Company, for example, is rumoured to be redesigning its stores to attract shoppers looking for entertainment, which new features such as "magic mirrors", which will allow children to play with Disney characters.

Many stores are also trying to lure customers by offering services that are not available online. Best Buy, for example, is a consumer-electronics retailer has started selling music lessons along with its musical instruments. Luluemon athletica, which sells sports clothes are starting to offer free yoga classes. The idea is to bring people back to its shops regularly, increasing the likelihood that they will develop the habit of shopping there.

Another idea is that mobile phones will be used as another way to purchase goods. Some consumers already use Internet-enabled handsets to shop online. But many analysts think a technology called "near-field communication" (NFC) might boost sales at stores, by allowing shoppers to scan products with their phones to learn more about the, and then to pay by swiping their phones at the till. Sadly, they these devices will not widely available for some time.

Connections
Some connections would be the location because if these stores were to be in a very small town which contains small amount of population, they couldn't take the advantages of Black Friday. Another would be Internet retailing which haven't been mentioned in the text book because online retailing was invented in 1995; a year after the textbook has been published. Online retailing's popularity has been increasing and just the thought of it has been increasing and reaching older generations, such as the baby boomer. Because Internet retailing has been going around, many stores has stopped opening stores and just have them done online, such as general merchandises, which consist of department stores and general stores. Another connection would be different types of retailing because stores such as telemarketing has been decreasing and are doing even worse because Internet retailing has been taking over. Another retailer that might be in danger would be the itinerant stores because many of these stores doesn't have a big market and they don't take part in black Fridays, so Internet retailing has also effect them.

Reflection
Even though Internet retailing is a lot cheaper than shopping retails in the malls, I still enjoy shopping in the malls because of the "touch and feel" phrase because I would like to see the clothing's the material and if it fits me. Another thing is that I could see this good in person so I could see the exact size, even though the measurements are told on the website, I would like to see the actual size, because measurement isn't my speciality.

I think when it's boxing day in December for Canadians, is when our black Friday starts. That's when all the department stores have a huge discount and lure their customers in by giving them many advantages. But because I know that many people would be there, each year, I would never shop there. I'd rather go a bit earlier than boxing day, or afterwards and get lesser advantages, than to be in the rush.

Even though I've stated that I'd rather go shopping in a mall than online, I have bought many things from the Internet because there are things in Canada that couldn't be found on the Internet. I've ordered something all the way from Singapore just because I never saw these goods being sold in Vancouver. I've got to admit, shopping online is great because it is cheaper than purchasing in stores, probably free shipping, no taxes and because there are more things to offer on the Internet than in stores.