Once upon a time, going shopping was considered no more than a celebration. An outing before any big festival was indeed shopping with entire family & a limited budget, and definitely the greatest reason for our delightful moods. With fewer stores and limited designs, our excitement for getting the desired knew no boundaries.
Convenience over the human touch
Since last decade, there has been a drastic change noticed in the consumer’s behavior and one can blame the advent of e-commerce for that. E-commerce has made it easy for the consumer to access any product without any constraint. Reasonable prices and a wide variety of available products make online stores more popular than traditional stores. The biggest USP of e-commerce is that you can easily buy products and get it delivered at your doorstep. Yes, this seems to be quite lucrative, but aren’t we missing something?
The eternal fight between ‘virtual’ & ‘actual’
Shopping is not just about buying a few sets of clothes, but much more than that. While we go out shopping, we meet people, make plans with friends, try attires, and do everything factually. There’s no ‘virtual’ assistant to guide us, but real people with whom we can interact and ask for their suggestions. We touch and feel the product before buying it- which makes it more authentic than a product ordered online. Perhaps this is why the product return percentage is much lesser for physical stores than in the online stores.
Missing the trust factor
The product showcased online often looks different than the actual product, while in retail stores, it is more-‘what you see is what you get’. The young people and busy professionals might love convenience over the emotional connect, but there are many advantages of shopping from the retail stores that not many people are aware of. Online shopping is yet to spread its wings in a full-fledged way for a developing country like India, and there are many hurdles for that. For example, there are certain places where the deliveries are not possible. Moreover, security & credit/debit card frauds are quite common in online shopping. Easy returns or getting quick feedback are often not possible with most of the online stores.
Time constraint with e-stores
The biggest benefit of shopping in retail stores is that one can instantly get the product, while online stores need some time to deliver the merchandise. It would be difficult for the consumer to buy online when he or she needs it urgently. Online shopping might need pre-planning while retail shopping plans can be made suddenly.
There are several benefits of shopping from the retail stores than from the e-stores. Perhaps this is why the startups are extending online and coming up with physical stores in various locations. There are many online stores that provide ‘buy-online-pick-it-from-the-store’ options, as they know the customers still need to touch before buying.
E-commerce has quite an important place in the present scenario, but that doesn’t hamper the position of retail stores. Most importantly, retail stores and shopping malls exist as there are a plenty of consumers who still believe in getting the ‘real’ feel before purchasing the product and that helps them earn more marks over the virtual shopping stores.
So, how often do you make plans with your loved ones and go out for shopping? Let us know and keep shopping at our Bazaar Kolkata stores for some ‘real’ shopping experiences!
