Rob Keeble
Member
- Messages
- 12,633
- Location
- GTA Ontario Canada
Hi All
Been thinking again and wondering do you see real stores being around in the long term. I aint thinking in terms of 10 years but say will your grandchildrens kids still go to a store for shopping?
We had a thread the other day which brought up the issue of what the big box stocks and what we have to do when we want something more niched in nature and sold in lower volumes. Many also felt gas prices and distance factored into this equation.
Now many wholesalers even offer the opportunity for you to be a store front on the web and they will drop ship product directly to your customer.
When i think of the overhead cost factor the only thing i know stores experience on an ongoing basis is increase in overhead. Rent increases each lease renewal and usually evenhas built in escallation clauses for each year of the lease, labor and utilities all increase in cost and at the end of the day the space the store has is finite so amortization of these costs across the product sold in the store is a must.
This has got to push the store sold products into a never ending escalation of price compared to the same product sold via the web.
At some point shipping costs with the way they have declined over the years as volumes have risen will become viable to absorb and surely make a physical store become redundant.
I was reminded of this issue the other day when i had cause to call back the past regarding an exhibition i spent huge dollars onattending way back in the day when the internet boom first started.
The booth opposite my stand was Mall dot com. Had just been given millions in venture capital money with every pundit forecasting the end of the world for shopping malls. Panic abounded the Shopping Mall industry in those days to the extent that the industry as a whole spent billions on the online side of shopping. They wired up the brick and mortar sites but it all collapsed and life went on as per usual.
So whats your take?
Perhaps we should have a poll but i know many dont like polls here so ....
Been thinking again and wondering do you see real stores being around in the long term. I aint thinking in terms of 10 years but say will your grandchildrens kids still go to a store for shopping?
We had a thread the other day which brought up the issue of what the big box stocks and what we have to do when we want something more niched in nature and sold in lower volumes. Many also felt gas prices and distance factored into this equation.
Now many wholesalers even offer the opportunity for you to be a store front on the web and they will drop ship product directly to your customer.
When i think of the overhead cost factor the only thing i know stores experience on an ongoing basis is increase in overhead. Rent increases each lease renewal and usually evenhas built in escallation clauses for each year of the lease, labor and utilities all increase in cost and at the end of the day the space the store has is finite so amortization of these costs across the product sold in the store is a must.
This has got to push the store sold products into a never ending escalation of price compared to the same product sold via the web.
At some point shipping costs with the way they have declined over the years as volumes have risen will become viable to absorb and surely make a physical store become redundant.
I was reminded of this issue the other day when i had cause to call back the past regarding an exhibition i spent huge dollars onattending way back in the day when the internet boom first started.
The booth opposite my stand was Mall dot com. Had just been given millions in venture capital money with every pundit forecasting the end of the world for shopping malls. Panic abounded the Shopping Mall industry in those days to the extent that the industry as a whole spent billions on the online side of shopping. They wired up the brick and mortar sites but it all collapsed and life went on as per usual.
So whats your take?
Perhaps we should have a poll but i know many dont like polls here so ....