The Internet is Taking Over Shopping

Jul 7, 2016
3 min read

In our modern world today, a huge majority of the population rely on the internet for everything. Students can register online for classes instead of in-person (thankfully) and people can now communicate online through hundreds of web chat browsers. Mintel's US Online Shopping report in 2015 reveals that over 69% of US online adults shop online at least monthly, with 33% shopping online every week in 2015. Consumers are finding it much easier and convenient to shop online where they can browse through products with just a scroll of a mouse or keypad, and dig for the best deals. But how about in-store? There's definitely still a lot of buzz inside retail stores with customers cruising around eyeing for new trends. People love to physically touch the material and try stuff on. Yet how often is your favourite retail store kept tidy? Let's think about Forever 21 or Zara right now - these are two main stores I usually enter, but every time I go in, I'm always greeted by piles of unorganized clothes clustered in one corner and the next, along with a mass of hangers intertwined and completely impossible to separate. It's a huge sudden turn-off when I'm forced to scour through a mountain of clothes in order to find what I want. It's hard work to unravel the hangers, and sometimes it's not even the shirt you thought you liked in the first place! Doing this again and again over time eventually becomes too tedious and customers don't have any more incentives to visit retail stores.

Let's look at another example - Kmart. Kmart used to be one of the greatest discount retailers in the United States, but over the years, their sales have plummeted. According to Business Insider, Kmart brought in USD$37 billion in sales and had 2,156 stores. But since its peak in 2000, "Kmart's sales have dropped 72% to $10 billion." They currently have 941 stores in States, with plans to shut down approximately 70 more in the near future. Why is that? The insides of a Kmart is an absolute mess. Business Insider wrote an article that previewed images of what it looked like inside the stores, and it was bizarre: racks were empty, clothes were dumped in piles waiting to be picked up, dozens of packages were torn opened, shelves were positioned right in the middle of the hallway - the entire store was complete chaos. No wonder shoppers aren't entering Kmart stores anymore. When your store is a mess and your customer's shopping experience is completely battered, people stop coming into your shop and that eventually leads to a decline in sales.

So where do people go to shop if they're not at the physical store itself? Online! Online shopping has been an incredible revolution in the retail world. Statistics have shown that 60% of adult Americans are happy to know they won't have to shop in a crowded mall or store, and nearly 70% of Americans shop online regularly. So what can retailers do to continue having in-store business? There's got to be a change in strategy. You have to start understanding what your customer want and how you can help increase their experience inside the store. Even the small stuff matters, such as the way the shelves are positioned, what apparel the customer sees first when they enter the store etc. There's been a lot of new retail tech in helping with in-store traffic that as a retailer, you should definitely research about. It might come as something small and unimportant, but in the end, traffic in your store adds up and I'm sure you would rather see positive sales rather than the opposite.