Are Your Future Efforts Focused on Your Website?
At Imerex, we are always talking about how companies need to start thinking about their long term plans for implementing their business online. The Wall Street Journal posted an interesting article about changes in the online shopping industry this week. The article states,
“Internet retail sales in the U.S. will grow 10% a year through 2015 as shoppers spend more time online, Forrester Research says, and the implications aren’t good for brick-and-mortar stores… not only are customers increasingly shopping online, but savvy in-store customers are also armed with smartphones that can help them find better deals elsewhere or score price-matching offers.”
Shopping online is only growing and not going away anytime soon. Therefore, businesses need to think about how they want to structure their operations to move with the times. They should not be relying on brick-and-mortar stores to merchandise, brand, and sell their products when sales continue to decline. Mulpuru writes,
“Companies need to think about the permanent implications of smaller margins on stores in the longer-term future and how their multichannel initiatives can help to offset this trend.”
This concept is something that we are always talking about and working on with our clients. Although it is intimidating to make changes to an existing supply chain, you don’t want to miss the boat on this fast moving online gravy train. Either, companies need to work with their distributors to come up with a profitable e-commerce plan (selling wholesale to ecommerce sites), or market themselves online in a way that appropriately represents the brand and creates revenue through their website.
See the full article here: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/02/27/e-commerce-will-keep-rolling-research-firm-says/?mod=dist_smartbrief
