Abstract:
Retailers are a vital part of the business world. Retailers add value to products by making it easier for manufactures to sell and consumers to buy. It would be very costly and time consuming for us to locate, contact and make a purchase from the manufacturer every time we wanted to buy a candy bar, a sweater or a bar of soap. Similarly, it would be very costly for the manufactures of these products to locate and distribute them to consumers individually. By bringing multitudes of manufacturers and consumers together at a single point, retailers make it possible for products to be sold, and, consequently, business to be done. Only the retailer can offer the consumer sensory satisfaction of touching, smelling, tasting, and hearing.For retailers operating in the “real world” of physical stores and catalogs, the changes wrought by retailers operating in the virtual world of online retailing are either terrifying or terribly exciting (or, most probably, both), but definitely hard to deny and difficult to escape. Online commerce activity is exploding. Existing companies are coming under attack by new fleet-footed competitors not saddled with the trappings of fixed assets, rigid business processes, and outdated organizational structures. Old ways of doing things are being rendered obsolete by new technologies facilitated by the Internet. As e-retailing continues to evolve and consumer access to the Internet continues to grow, so too will online sales.
