This is exactly what I am thinking ALWAYS!! Whenever I find something in a store I feel like buying, I am always tempetd to look online for a cheaper deal or version. And 9 out of 10 times, i do manage to get a cheaper version.
Onlne Shopping does offer prices which stors can never offer, they dont have to pay for the real estate, the employees, the electricity, heating etc etc..... But counterfeiting is something that erks me on the other hand.
The need to feel a product is also a valid concern for most shoppers, most times I do my research for a product (like a cmaera I wanted to buy) online, but when I did narrow down my options, I went to a store to actually feel each one and ultimately ended up buying online!
Alison, well, shopping is still a social activity, I believe. Friends go shopping for fun, I don't know, if it's fun to sit with your friends in front of your computer, clicking the models. May be it is but not as much as doing it "off-line". So there is still a chance.
Mid size folks are going to have a rough time agains Amazon like giants. Much like small family owned stores had a hard time surviving Walmart openings in their towns. Unless there's something the shopping public wants from smaller companies, they're headed to the giants for convenience and better pricies.
Positive thoughts, Alison, but I fear insufficient. Plenty of people want to go to bookstores and browse, and sit in comfy chairs, and visit the coffee counter, and meet an author. Barnes & Noble has the experience thing nailed.
Then they order the books online, and not necessarily from Barnes & Noble.
It's that whole "experience" that gets bandied around so much! I remember as a kid going to garden centers in England, being dragged from one to the other as my parents searched for whatever it was they needed. My sister and I always preferred the centers that had miniature petting zoos--for obvious reasons--and clamored to go to those first. If we weren't heading in that direction, then we wanted to go to the one that had several cats. Retailers need to go beyond merely providing products; they must create that 'experience,' whether it's through gift-wrap, catering to shoppers' kids, valet parking, or some other perk that makes customers want to travel and spend money there.
We just don't believe, that one day- we go out and can't find any retail store in the street. Only street machines with chockolate bars, self service gas stations and...that's it. And children will go to museams to see how it could be-just like settlements of first pilligrims in the States.
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