Ehrin Davis wrote on 04/05/10 3:26 PM

I would certainly agree that shopping online is a much easier and more enjoyable experience than going to a physical retailer. The trend of online and automated service is increasing at a huge rate, in part to the ease of NOT having to deal with a physical employee. Consumers will continue to benefit but the question is: how much will workers be hurt?

Work continues to follow the trend of being made efficient by being automated, leaving more people looking for jobs once they become replaced by a machine. There is evidence of this in the financial crisis and ensuing recession. Even with the economy showing signs of growth, the jobless rates are still very high. Or, in other words, companies can function and grow and major transactions can take place but without the need for many actual people carrying-out tasks. Automated computer-based services generally do the job much better than a human salesperson (or assembly line worker) but at what cost to the workers that are replaced?

Kai Stephan wrote on 04/09/10 12:03 PM

This survey really shows how the internet is having an impact on traditional retailing, not to mention every other aspect of life. Apart from the two aforementioned significant differences between online and brick-and-mortar retailers, I feel there are two other big differences that might have had an affect on the survey: convenience and near-infinite inventory.

First, online retailers are not only often more convenient for shopping-you can go to their store no matter where you physically are- but also in the delivery and return of the products. Take for example Zappos, who pays for the return shipping. If I don’t like the shoes I bought, all I have to do is place the shoes back in the box they came in, attach the return shipping sticker that was in the box, and drop it off at any shipping center or mailbox. Compare that to a return in the brick-and-mortar store, where you have to often find your receipt (maybe between the couch cushions?), drive to the specific store, wait in line at the customer service desk, and sometimes deal with questions regarding as to why it is being returned. Now the brick-and-mortar store may have great customer service and return policies, but there is still the hassle involved of doing work to return the product.

Second is inventory. With the near-zero marginal costs of adding an addition page to one’s website for a new product, the amount of “inventory” of an online retailer can be nearly limitless. I quote inventory because although online retailers often have warehouses where physical inventory is kept, products not sold as much can be drop shipped directly from the manufacturer. Thus, they stock these products, but don’t pay the inventory costs of owning a warehouse. Brick-and-mortar retailers are limited by the physical size of their store, thus limiting their selection of products to a finite amount. This can lead to customer dissatisfaction when he/she is looking for a particular item in a store and fails to find it.

It is without a doubt that as the world becomes progressively “flatter”, competition among like businesses escalates. The market place continues to trend in the consumer’s favor.

Colenn wrote on 04/14/10 5:28 PM

I think that the rankings bring up a question about causation versus correlation. Did people select the online retailers as their favorites because they actually prefer the online customer service, or because they correlate these companies with inexpensive products? I'm not sure if LL Bean or QVC offer competitive prices, but they do offer products that people living in isolated areas couldn't necessarily find in local stores. So, although online shopping and other virtual shopping offer great benefits, like convenience and knowledge of customers' preferences, people could favor them (maybe even subconsciously) because of their low prices.

Bob wrote on 04/27/10 5:56 PM

One of the reasons that Circuit City went belly up was that the kids in the stores didn't know much about their products and that they agressively tried to sell up-I quit going into their stores because no matter what I wanted, the saleskid tried to sell me something else, always more expensive. On the other hand, Mens' Warehouse does a great job of making the dorkiest of us feel like a fashion plate. Even though I always spend much more than anticipated at MW, I always feel like I was well-served. I may still be a dork, but I feel like a well-dressed one. MW trains their saleskids well, CC didn't.....