In Favor :-

  • Growth of E-commerce is much faster than growth of sales in physical stores in retail sector.
  • Online shopping is very convenient and time saving for consumers, because products will be delivered at our homes.
  • E-commerce platforms are bringing more and more features like delivering daily usage items for the month, same day shipping etc.
  • At present, 60% of the world’s population is not connected to internet. Once they connect to online, E-commerce’s growth will be more.
  • Less capital investment and operation costs make online shopping sites more profitable. Hence they can provide more services to customers.
  • Online stores are providing more flexible payment options like wallets, coupons & EMI etc.
  • Some physical retail stores are shutting down as they find it difficult to compete with online stores.
  • Finding things in online stores is much easier compared to physical shops.
  • The need to stand in queue to pay the cash will be eliminated.  This will be an advantage in user experience.
  • We can buy any product form any corner of the world through online stores, even if we live in a remote area.

Against :-

  • Though the growth of online stores is faster, 90% the sales of retail items is being done by physical stores.
  • The biggest advantage of physical stores is the facility to touch and try the products, which is pretty difficult in E-commerce.
  • Physical stores enables the owner to have stronger customer relations, when compared to online shopping sites.
  • At present, online stores are offering many discount deals to attract customers. Once they stop discounts, people may not choose to buy the same things online.
  • Returning and exchanging things in online stores is a difficult process compared to physical shops.
  • In online stores, many will just check products and few people buy. So the conversion rates will be low. But in physical stores, conversion rates will be high.
  • With the constant innovation in the technology sector, online shopping will become safer than the present.
  • E-commerce is very innovative, when compared to physical stores.
  • While buying things from online stores, we have to put up with sponsored products ads, popups etc.
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Facts :-

  • More and more physical stores are integrating with E-commerce sector.
  • Physical stores are called as ‘Brick and mortar system’.
  • Consumers are preferring online shopping for some goods like furniture & office supplies, and preferring physical stores for some goods like groceries & food items.
  • As anyone can sell in online store, Low quality products are also being sold there.
  • Photos in online stores can be deceptive.
  • As cyber attacks and malware are increasing day by day, people are fearing about the safety of using online shopping.

Room for improvement :-

  • E-commerce :- Online stores need to take steps to eliminate substandard products.
  • Physical stores :- Brick and mortar stores need to change with the changing societal needs. It should adapt innovative changes.

Conclusion :-

Physical stores will not go away for sure. Instead the present trend indicates that physical stores and E-commerce sector will work together in a win-win situation.

Afterwords :- Do you prefer online shopping over shopping in physical stores? What do you think about the future of e-commerce. Express your thoughts in the comment section below.


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4 Comments

  • Sanjeeb, Nov 10, 2023 @ 12:35 pm Reply

    Definitely not. As the physical stores are backbones of the products & goods. All the products we buy that comes from these physical outlet stores. Both the options have both plus & minus in terms of customer satisfaction. As 40- 50 % of people are still not connected with the internet, when they will that might affect the stores partially but not fully. For physical outlets the satisfaction, the relation bonding how they create it makes a huge impact on people’s trust where as it lacks in e commerce. And what about product quality that is fully zero in e commerce, you can’t even a touch a thing and will get to know how that product is.

  • Tinku paul, Aug 8, 2018 @ 7:22 am Reply

    According to me, E-COMMERCE dominate the physical store city area people like online shopping because of time saving and money saving they get lot of discount and can make payment through cards ,EMI , wallet etc.Many physical store getting shut down because they are not able to compete with the online store but remote areas people they have to go to physical store because not they are very computer friendly and the area is not under coverage for delivery.City area s people like to go to shopping mall or big bazaar etc . One day will come city area physical store will not be there, Many people will be jobless they will shut their business, they will not able to compete with online store.

  • Sneha, Jun 15, 2018 @ 11:00 pm Reply

    What about people who live in rural areas they can’t switch to online as they are not aware of present trends

  • Nishant, Jun 1, 2018 @ 7:50 pm Reply

    As,We are rapidly stepping towards digitization, people are becoming more aware for how to use the technologies in terms of phones , laptops , people become more aware about the online shopping websites of both urban and rural sectors, it’s more convenient to purchase any item just sitting at your place , where you are saving your time plus money too (like travel expenditures and also you will get discount offers and EMI facilities ) ,as all big brands of all sectors are available online now for shopping with great discount offers, you just need to search type of your item, n get that according to your budget too , also you can track your product until didn’t receive that, also the most important is that , those people who didn’t get platform to sell their products can easily put their items on online shopping websites, like people who works on handcraft works , specially women of rural backgrounds are taking advantages of it by selling their own made items like cloths , groceries , bags and food items like pickles,and they can get their payments without any middle man and transparently and easily . So , according to me e-commerce has its more benefits than the disadvantages just requirement is of making people more literate n aware in terms of digitization and e-commerce and for that only the government should not only took the responsibility but we youth should come forward n become volunteer to make people aware about it.

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