Online Electronics sellers - the future of retail or the end as we know it?

[erin]

Perhaps I'm missing something vital, but I can't see how this is sustainable - retailers offering retail levels of service for online prices. Can you? ISTM it only works at present because few people are savvy enough to ask for the online price when at the counter. Once everyone is on to the game, the house of cards comes tumbling down.

I used Taobao here to determine the going price for recordable CDs. There are retailers advertising on there, they even give their addresses. When I turned up in person they refused to give me their online price. To me this makes some sense so I now expect to pay a certain premium for retail purchases.

I don't think that it is sustainable long term. I think retailers are going to close.
I think the retail sales assistant, is going to end up working in warehouses for online sales stores. However, I dont think jobs are at risk. I think the jobs we do will just change. comments?

 

[abraxalito]

I'm neither an economist or a politician,.

But this is DIYaudio - you don't need to be an EE to engineer your own audio. Likewise you don't need to be an economist to suss out what's doing down. In fact neither policians nor economists in general seem to be interested in fixing the problems. Not being an economist is actually an advantage these days - the "professional" ones seem to have religious views when it comes to economic theory

 

[MJL21193]

I don't think that it is sustainable long term. I think retailers are going to close.
I think the retail sales assistant, is going to end up working in warehouses for online sales stores. However, I dont think jobs are at risk. I think the jobs we do will just change. comments?

The way of the world is that the old way gets replaced by the new way and it is actually ridiculous to lament this.
With that said, I don't know about where you are, but retail is thriving here and will be for the foreseeable future. Most people still do the majority of their shopping in the physical world.

 

[abraxalito]

I think retailers are going to close.

The ones that offer the same prices as online stores will be the first. That's a tacit admission that they're not adding any value at all. I believe that retailers who do add value - the ones you go to because of their skills and expertise - will be able to continue. But they'll need to be jolly clear about what they're offering - that is, a service. Think of a Starbucks-style audio retailer where the environment they create is what you're paying for...

I think the retail sales assistant, is going to end up working in warehouses for online sales stores. However, I dont think jobs are at risk. I think the jobs we do will just change. comments?

I agree. Given that we're used to a paltry level of service, there's nothing to lose from an online store.

 

[erin]

The way of the world is that the old way gets replaced by the new way and it is actually ridiculous to lament this.
With that said, I don't know about where you are, but retail is thriving here and will be for the foreseeable future. Most people still do the majority of their shopping in the physical world.

I'm not lamenting the change. I embrace it.