What’s worse? The guilt of finding a similar garment at some other store with a lower price just after buying your new outfit or realising the garment you ordered online does not cover your skin the way you expected it to?
Online or offline, shopping always has its own quirks. While online shopping saves time, stores let you waste your time in the trial room, clicking pictures wearing clothes that you will never buy. While online shopping gives you a vast variety of options, stores allow you to try an outfit before purchasing it. However, crowded stores never create a nice experience for the people who shop. It is very unlikely to avoid queues while we are shopping for what we want. Most importantly, the same garments are sold at a cheaper rate online which guarantees more sales. With all the perks that come with online shopping, physical stores have had a tough time keeping up because being pet friendly, setting up photobooths and getting entertainers to get people through their doors is not as flashy as the cheap rates and fast delivery that we find online. The idea of online shopping has revolutionised the entire retail and trade world. Fashion industry runs because of two sets of people and two different perspectives that can be taken into account while considering this change in the industry: one of the brands and the other of consumers, usually conflicting as they coexist.
Even though online shopping has expanded a brand’s geographical outreach and is has made it available to an entirely different range of customers, it has also opened the gates for new brands to come up as potential competitors. Social media is a game-changer when it comes to advertising. When e-commerce sites use social media as their tool to gain more customers, new and not so known brands, who come together and make the site a whole, have their way-in which is why the brick and mortar stores are not only competing with this revolutionised idea of online shopping but also the small upcoming brands that come along with it.
Considering customers, the tedious work of moving from one location to another to find no available stocks or coming back empty-handed due to lack of options can now be avoided. Its easier to purchase garments after surveying and reading customer reviews. It also opens a wide range of options for us. The same wide-leg pants are now sold by 3 different retail stores and we can choose the right material and size at the best price we want.
As much as brands like Shein are seeing a major downfall due to the current Indo-China crisis, Adidas and Zalando have been experimenting with VR changing rooms where customers can try on garments with the help of virtual reality and get a 360 degree view before purchasing the product. ‘Click and collect’ has replaced the appealing scent of physical stores and is now becoming the new normal.
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