Retail Sales are Dead
Retail sales are dying. Lets face it. Personally, I haven’t shopped in a brick and mortar store that has sales associates in the past 5+ years. You want to know why? Because I can buy the same product online for cheaper and not be harassed (or even lied to) to buy other crap I don’t need.
Just this week, we found out that Office Depot employees have been lying to customers who don’t want to purchase extra products. If they don’t want an extended warranty or other accessories, which is where most stores make their money, the sales associates lie to the customer and tell them the product they want is then out of stock. If you do want to buy all that extra crap, you’re in luck, the lapotp you want is it stock.
BestBuy has been caught using similar tactics to upsell products to customers. Circuit City has gone out of business because they couldn’t upsell enough products. The cost of operating a retail store is expensive. The cost of paying employees to stand around around and sell products is expensive. The margins, on some products are narrow, because the accessories have a very high margin and that’s where the real money is.
Online stores don’t need to print ads. They don’t need to pay associates to stand around. They pay to keep the website functioning and for people to fulfill orders. On top of that, some even have mostly automated warehouses. They might send out emails with specials, but that costs next to nothing.
Brick and mortar stores with retail sales associates are a dying breed. Just like the RIAA and MPAA, they haven’t found a way to compete and stay profitable with the new players in the market. Its the same thing that’s happening with print media vs online media.
