The story about Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods Market broke only a little over a week ago, yet it has already been told over, and over again, from almost every possible angle. Most stories have used phrases like “sending shockwaves across both the online and brick-and-mortar industries,” while others predicted dire proclamations, forecasts of further doom with big-name stores closing and prophecies of “death” for shopping malls, all blaming e-commerce as the inevitable culprit.
But the reality is that it underscores again and again how the intersection of retail and e-commerce is the wave of the future and is ushering in the long awaited “channel-less shopper.”
The doom and gloom so often predicted for brick-and-mortar establishments is being proved wrong again and again. The actuality is that retail is being reinvented by technological disruption and evolving into a fully integrated business model of bricks-and-clicks.
As an example, several retailers have quietly adopted this integration, focusing on the growing popularity and need for showrooming – offering customers a fully integrated in-store brand experience with the flexibility to purchase in store or online – and they are doing well. These include not only apparel retailers, but also the automotive, consumer electronics and furniture industries, among others. Showrooming has only increased consumers’ appetite for a variety of shopping options, making digital retailing and brick-and-mortar complementary. In that scenario, consumers enjoy the shopping experience, without shopping in the traditional sense at all. In many cases, they won’t bring home a purchase but, instead, buy online.
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Source: Fox News
