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During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Internet has been more important than ever before. Everyone seemed to realize that almost everything can be bought online without the hassle of going to physical stores. This includes everything from the most niche technology to everyday items like groceries. Now the question is: Is exclusively online shopping our future? Will online solutions outnumber the physical stores and boutiques? And will bigger platforms like Amazon or eBay take over every platform?
Huge Online Platforms Are Taking Over
Online shopping is huge in many industries already – the fashion industry, in particular, is proof of this. Other industries have also moved online to be able to reach more customers than they would in physical stores and to reduce costs. Selling an item in a physical store is much more expensive than selling it online since someone always has to be working in the store. This is not the case for online shops.
Another reason we see the online market skyrocketing is the larger eCommerce platforms such as Amazon and eBay. Amazon offers almost every product in the world in one place and has favorable Prime memberships to ensure fast delivery of products. And on eBay, you can also find pretty much everything and even sell items like handmade or personalized products yourself to a wide range of customers. If this sounds like your kind of thing, or if you already have a business, Web Retailer’s information can boost your eCommerce business by helping with both software and insight knowledge about the bigger platforms and how they work.
Is Online Shopping Convenient?
As humans, we tend to gravitate towards the most convenient solutions. This also affects our shopping habits: If buying something online is easier, we will usually choose this over shopping in-store. Right now, shopping in-store is a reminder of the ongoing pandemic for the many people who still have to wear face masks, and it takes many precautions before we can go. None of this is an issue when shopping online, and since many are working from home, they aren’t out anyway – so a trip to a store is an even larger inconvenience than before.
There are many other relevant points when discussing the future of shopping – such as waiting time and shipping. While these factors do make the online shopping experience less convenient, especially shipping time is going down at the moment with services such as Amazon Prime and their fast delivery. Online shopping is indeed very convenient for many things, and this is one of the reasons why more and more stores make use of online platforms in some way.
Marketing Is Moving Online Too
Another key factor to the shopping moving online is, of course, the fact that marketing has moved online too. Marketing has a far better reach when using online methods, and almost everyone is making use of this and the specific tools available to reach people known to have an interest in the specific product. Businesses can cater to the customers’ interests and target the right audience for their digital marketing. The digital marketing has evolved rapidly, and it’s likely that the online market will change in the same way.
It is impossible to say if ecommerce will be the only way to shop in the future. But chances are that some physical stores will still be around for quite some time in some way.
