Quote:
Originally Posted by esquire
^ Even if bricks and mortar retail declines by half, there will still be an awful lot of it left. But you would have to think population increases would offset at least some of those losses to online.
That said, I wonder if some businesses might be happy to move to online shopping... no shoplifting, no need for pricy retail commercial space, less overhead generally.
|
I think that you raise an interesting set of issues here. It seems a lot of retailers moving online is driven not by consumer demand, but by cost cutting. There are clearly some social issues that factor into that too. Theft and safety etc. have been a growing concern in many cities, not just downtown Winnipeg.
It's a multi-variable analysis obviously. Clearly, inflation does drive people to cut costs too, but that activity hurts all retailers that don't deal in groceries essentially.
As a sidebar, I can't say I've ever noticed price differences between goods sold online by a company and goods in the store. Should I be asking for a discount when I order stuff through the website?? Does a retailer not pass on the cost of shipping to its customers? What about the wildy inefficient system of online returns. I recently learned that online returns can cost the retailer up to 21% of the value lf the item.... there are ancillary and novel costs to doing business purely online.
Threaded Mode