Commerce vs eCommerce. How big is the impact of online e-commerce on the traditional offline retail market? When eBay started its operations around 25 years ago, eCommerce was at its very beginning. Big retail chains were laughing at online shops, but then they understood that while it would take them months to open a new store, it would take online shops just minutes to open up a new server and reach the same amount of new potential clients. Today we can say that eCommerce not only has become a very important sales channel for almost all industries but also plays a vital role from an education standpoint on the customer perspective.
So let’s try to have a higher view on the power of online over offline: we can say that online holds the richest education material, which is out there in the form of reviews. Reviews drive sales, both online and offline. Reviews are great for social proof. When we see that others have purchased the same product, you kind of feel safer, right? Online reviews are also a great source of information to improve products, services, and communication. Lastly, but most importantly, reviews are becoming a benchmarking tool for offline shops that want to identify the right products to put on their shelves.
Commerce vs eCommerce. On e-commerce, brands can have almost unlimited space to sell their products, but offline the space that retail offers to manufacturers is limited, and usually very expensive. Retailers don’t want to waste any more physical space trying to sell products that won’t sell fast and to identify the top-performing ones, they use online reviews. Amazon is opening some offline stores where they would only sell products that online got 4 stars or above. It’s no secret that Home Depot will remove from the shelves products that don’t get enough online reviews with good star ratings.
So if you were still wondering how big is the impact of online over offline, now you know that this impact is so massive that traditional retailers will only sell products that perform well in the digital world. E-commerce is taking over the word of commerce. As we advance into the digital age, we are becoming ever more reliant on the world of e-comm, with offline retail also becoming reliant on e-comm to drive sales. The future of retail has never been clearer! We are advancing into a future where there will be no more offline retail, and e-commerce will be the way in which we shop.