E-commerce: is it really killing physical retail?


Many people would believe that with the development of e-commerce, retail industries may face several risks. For instance, giants like Amazon are pushing consumers to buy online. However, data from Black Friday and other such events demonstrate the opposite.

Adobe has recently conducted a survey on US retail spending over the past few days. Its finding showed that e-shopping services are increasingly popular among customers. On Black Friday only, online sales hit a new record of $7.4 billion. It was also revealed that more and more shoppers are using their smartphone to buy products. Mobile purchases accounted for 39% of all e-commerce sales. This is an increase of 21% from last year.

This data might give the impression that physical stores have suffered. However, that is not the case. In fact, the rise of e-commerce has led to the BOPIS (Buy Online, Pickup In Store) phenomenon and this is benefiting brick-and-mortars. According to Adobe, the increase in these transactions is a “sign that retailers are successfully bridging online and offline retail operations”. This has been proven by Target and Best Buy. The latter reported a revenue of $9.8 billion, exceeding Wall Street’s expectations. This is a result of both online and offline sales.



BOPIS benefits physical stores

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