The sharp increased use of online shopping has been impacting traditional businesses and urban areas. This could be due to people been much consicious about time and money spent on travelling to various stores to search an item they want to purchase as when online ordering customer is shown variety of products at a glance. Further, with the increased level of vehicles on the road in busy cities will discourage people from travelling to go to retail shops in the areas.
Over the past few years there has been an increasing trend for online shopping as applications and websites allow people to search through different items with their preferences being easily filtered in the website. It is much convenient for customers to check out and compare against other retailers and assess reviews on items before purchasing which eventually cause a drop in customers visiting for retail stores and ultimately they will have decreased sales. Secondly, people prefer to travel less and order at the fingertip as many online shopping sites offer to deliver to your doorstep with a small charge for delivery service which is much efficient for customers than travelling to stores this may cause retail stores even to shut down and they will not be able to economically benefit.
In order to prevent lack of sales in retail stores, they may choose to launch their own online websites so that customers can easily access from smartphone and make purchases. Secondly, retail stores may have to introduce loyalty schemes or discounts and heavily advertise promoting to visit their stores and purchase which will attract customers due to the benefits they get because of the offers.
In conclusion, in order to compete with the rising online shopping due to customers having busy lifestyles or because of convenience retail stores have to do research on potential customers and identify their preferences and also consider heavy investment in adverstising to attract customers.
