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Are Online Stores Taking Over Real Ones?

The news over the past couple of weeks has been a little crazy in the consumer world. Toys R Us has closed 75 of it´s United States stores, Abercrombie and Fitch, Macy’s, JC Penny and Sears are all on the brink of bankruptcy and Amazon made $682 billion dollars. And with Amazon seemingly being the top website with 75% of all consumers shopping on it, it seems like going online is now the best option for a company to stay afloat.

Amazon has grown into a multi-million dollar industry, with the holiday season in 2017 bringing in around $2.1 billion with the Amazon Echo being sold out at a consumer buying something from the online store every 1.5 seconds. Compare this to Toys R Us’s sales in the past few months with them hitting a height of $81 million dollars around the holiday season and a total of $935 million in the overall year (according to Ignite’s Spot track revenue records) 2017 was nightmare for Toys R Us’s sales with the company spending $400 million trying to keep it’s stores open before the official announcement on March 14th about it’s closing and 31 thousand workers getting laid off.

There are many reasons why people assume Amazon’s dominance over almost all retail has been doing exceptionally well than most common retail stores. One thing is Amazon’s convenience of its services. Amazon has the advantage of being all online, meaning anyone anywhere can access the store and order kitchen appliances, clothes, furniture and other common necessities all in the comfort of the couch. This convenience is considerably much easier to handle than having to get up, go out of the house and head down to your retail stores to pick up whatever you need. So maybe that may be why Amazon has been flourishing over the last couple of years. But one problem with Amazon is the chances of getting screwed over by a faulty purchase or buying something that may not have been what it was shown as. If you look anywhere online, most likely you’ve seen the pictures of people buying something online and it arriving as incredibly small or broken beyond repair. This risk isn’t a thing when going to a physical retail since what you’re seeing is really what’s there. It’s always something to keep in mind when buying anything online.

Amazon’s growth has also slammed other companies besides Toys R Us. Abercrombie and Fitch been suffering from poor sales over the past couple of months also. The clothing store’s earnings dropped 14% and $237 million dollars being lost. Many of clothes bearing Abercrombie and Fitch’s had to get their logo removed in order to cut the cost of making it. Abercrombie and Fitch have since made the jump online opening an online to try and keep a leg up and keep money flowing in. JC Penny also is trying to keep it’s brand alive despite losing investors and a 3.5% drop in sales and 138 of its stores getting shut down.

The future for a lot of retail stores is looking a little bleak. Lots of stores are either going online or failing with dropping or underperforming sales. Meanwhile, Amazon is showing no signs of slowing down and we may see a new era where buying a new stove being done all on your couch is just an everyday occurrence.

Griffin Davis

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