Online Shopping Stores
Today, however, that economic reality is well established. The research firm Forrester estimates that e-commerce is now approaching $200 billion in revenue in the United States alone and accounts for 9% of total retail sales, up from 5% five years ago. The corresponding figure is about 10% in the United Kingdom, 3% in Asia-Pacific, and 2% in Latin America. Globally, digital retailing is probably headed toward 15% to 20% of total sales, though the proportion will vary significantly by sector. Moreover, much digital retailing is now highly profitable. Amazon’s five-year average return on investment, for example, is 17%, whereas traditional discount and department stores average 6.5%.
E-commerce
What we are seeing today is only the beginning. Soon it will be hard even to define e-commerce, let alone measure it. Is it an e-commerce sale if the customer goes to a store, finds that the product is out of stock, and uses an in-store terminal to have another location ship it to her home? What if the customer is shopping in one store, uses his smartphone to find a lower price at another, and then orders it electronically for in-store pickup? How about gifts that ordered from a website but exchanged at a local store? Experts estimate that digital information already influences about 50% of store sales, and that number is growing rapidly.
As it evolves, digital retailing is quickly morphing into something so different that it requires a new name: omnichannel
retailing. The name reflects the fact that retailers will be able to interact with customers through countless channels—
websites, physical stores, kiosks, direct mail and catalogs, call centers, social media, mobile devices, gaming consoles,
televisions, networked appliances, home services, and more. Unless conventional merchants adopt an entirely new
perspective—one that allows them to integrate disparate channels into a single seamless omnichannel experience—
they are likely to swept away. Online Shopping stores
