Just motivated myself to do some (albeit limited) reading for one of my assignments and came across this article: www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/09564230110694820. It provides a good counter to the argument that all non-food retail will end up taking place online, largely because of the paradox that the main reasons for choosing to be an online retailer (low startup and running costs, infinite scalability, less reliance on human beings) go against the requirements of successfully growing and maintaining competitive advantage (because you need to continue offering an acceptable or better level of customer service as your business grows, which requires more quality staff).
My counter to that would be that it's still more efficient to house all your staff and stock in call centres and warehouses and take payment before shipping the item than it is to pay rent on a load of stores where people can walk in and nick stuff and the customer experience can vary hugely... but there.
My counter to that would be that it's still more efficient to house all your staff and stock in call centres and warehouses and take payment before shipping the item than it is to pay rent on a load of stores where people can walk in and nick stuff and the customer experience can vary hugely... but there.
Of course that's just one element of a retailer's context, (my next stop is supermarkets and whether my specialist retailer actually offers better standards of CS than supermarkets... I don't think it does) but I thought the article's argument was an interesting one.
And with that. I'm going to watch CSI NY now methinks.
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