| Freeda |
09-23-2011 07:48 PM |
Shopping/ordering online (or by phone) is the trend for now and the future; because the supplier is not paying for the cost of a storefront (payroll, light bill, rent, decor, etc) it can get a product to you for less cost; and more and more some of the highest quality products (even cars - and services - like Netflix. for movie rentals) will be sold this way, so that more money can be put into the quality of the product, rather than middleman costs that increase the cost of products (which forces many producers to have to try to keep down the cost of what goes into the product, to allow for the 'cushion' of cost that is added on after it leave the producer, because of the costs of retail distribution) and get added on to what the consumer has to pay for it.
This is one of the reasons. in addition to the downturn in the economy, that we see some retailers closing, like Circuit City, Borders, some Blockbuster stores, empty storefronts in malls, etc; like it or not, this is where the trend is. And even retailers, like Victoria's Secret, Kohls', Walmart, etc are heavily into online marketing now, because of this trend, and of course not wanting to miss out on their share of it.
Not that retail will ever be completely eliminated. Some things, like shoes and clothes (I always think of this example), alot of us will always want to see and try on before buying; even though they could be ordered online (probably for less cost).
It is interesting to consider the history of how things were distributed; originally there were peddlers; and merchants of specialized goods (ie, such as a cobbler) in small storefronts; and both of these marketers were able to provide specialized knowledge about their products to consumers. Eventually when department stores were created there was an uproar, since it was thought that they were unfair and would put the small specialist merchants and peddlers out of business. When the idea of franchising retail sales operations next came out, there was another huge objection, and even attempts to have franchising outlawed as an illegal trade practice; but of course, franchising is a normal form of retail business today. But now we are gradually seeing a return to specialization in marketing, at least of more complex products that people need to be educated about, and also a decline in retailing with the advent of the capability of distributing products through informational marketing, ie, providing information online or by phone leading to direct sales to consumers without retail distribution. For example instead of the peddler, like the Fuller Brush man, bringing goods to ones home and educatiing the consumer about them, this educating, in what is more and more becoming the 'information age' of consumerism, is provided through the convenience of electronic means such as reading information and looking at photos/diagrams online, or by talking with people by phone or in online chatting, etc. who are product specialists - just like the door to door peddlers who were trained to educate people about their products - that were not in existence in the past.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, we have ordered a number of electronics, including 2 largescreen tvs, laptops, speakers, a netbook, etc online over the past few years; and have saved substantial amounts of money because of avoiding retail add-on costs, and had no problems. Heck, we even bought life insurance online from a top company; because of its simplicity and the excellent rates.
From our experiences with this I think as long as we are dealing with one of the larger, longterm online companies (shopnbc is one of the ones we have used), and with the protections we have today of being able to reverse charges by ordering on debit/credit cards in the event of an unresolved problem or dispute, there is really not much (if any) more risk than dealing with a retail outlet. Even with retailers there can potentially be disputes. At least by ordering online or by phone, it may save some time and expense by not having to visit various stores, and we can order whenever it is convenient, leaving more prime time hours for important things like going to the pool or playing golf.
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