Retail eCommerce
When comparing retail and eCommerce, you’ll find out that both of those things offer a very similar concept - they determine what happens when a product is sold to a individual customer, except one of them is executed entirely through the internet. Retail can be carried out in a number of ways : stores, mails, even direct sales, while eCommerce involves commercial transactions that are mostly conducted through the internet. There’s also a well-known term that is “retail eCommerce sales”, which is defined as the sale of products or services where the transaction process is done entirely online.
Nowadays there are many marketplaces that can do both traditional retail services and eCommerce marketing. The simplest form of shopping - which is going out to a store and making a purchase - will never disappear entirely. However, more and more retailers are slowly adding their own online storefronts, for instance Walmart or Target. You can choose to visit their nearest physical outlets, or you can just make your purchases via their online websites. While online shopping is ever-evolving in popularity because of the convenience it brings, it doesn’t mean that normal retailers are going to be completely replaced, in fact both these mediums are still growing really strong. It’s the ever-changing nature of technology that leads to the rise of online shopping.
Thanks to the Internet, applications and cloud-based services, you can clearly see the enormous difference between how we used to make a purchase 20 years ago and how we can make a purchase today. The truth is, small businesses can’t even survive the competition between the current marketplaces if their products or services don’t show up on
online shopping platforms. One of the best aspects of online shopping is that shoppers have access to all the information about the products and their purchases, reducing the need for sales pitching and marketing. People can look up the items that they want on their internet browser, check out some reviews about them, compare prices between different outlets, and then find the nearest store, or make their purchase through online retailers on their electronic devices like computers or smartphones.
The ease of access is one of the main reasons shopping has changed in the past few years, mostly thanks to the internet providing a way for people to search for what they want, and then make a purchase based on it. A recent study indicates that over 38% of Internet users in the United States make their purchases online several times a month, some even weekly. Even more, users can track their own shipment status and delivery dates entirely online. And with the addition of promotions, discounts and deals, combined with good reviews and recommendations of the products, there’s no reason for shoppers not to take advantage of all those online retailers, making this the most popular and convenient way of shopping.
The future of retail is shaping up to be more and more digital, especially with the rise of various eCommerce retailers. But no matter how it changes, having an excellent attention to details, a good management and a strengthened relationship with customers will always be essential to every businesses.