The Future Of Retail Won’t Be So Good For Consumers
TechCrunch: Shopping – both online and offline – is a great luxury of the modern era. People can enjoy a great selection at lower prices and shop from the convenience of their home, while still having the option of going to a local mall or retailer to peruse the aisles for instant gratification. But consumers can’t have their cake and eat it, too, and the retail world as we know it today can no longer give it to them.
Retail Will Change Forever
Technology is killing the traditional retailer. Victims will include those selling commodity brand-name-type products like consumer electronics, appliances, sporting equipment and furniture, and may even include those selling consumable goods.
Price wars, combined with technology shifts, will eliminate national, regional and local competitors who just can’t keep up. Many of today’s vendors will cease to exist as online shopping takes larger shares of all sorts of markets. Just look at the trends in companies like Best Buy, Staples, Radio Shack and Sears.
Burdened by physical infrastructure, many of today’s in-store retailers can’t escape the online gravitational pull that eats at their business despite their investments to adapt.
The ones that remain will only be the biggest and the best. Amazon will succeed in taking over the online space, and Walmart will be the survivor of the in-store/online model, while other online niche competitors find a way to earn a living.
