Will online storefronts wipe out brick-and-mortar businesses?

Yes

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by Zaf R.

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The writing is on the wall. We are all witnessing one of the greatest life changing transformations in human history; do we dare say that something is impossible? Lest we forget the past:

"I think there is a world market for about five computers".
Thomas J. Watson Jr., chairman of IBM (1943)

"640 K [of computer memory] ought to be enough for anybody."
Bill Gates, founder and CEO of Microsoft (1981)

"The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty-a fad."
President of the Michigan Savings Bank, to Henry Ford's lawyer, Horace Rackham.

Do you want to be the one being quoted as saying this:

"Online storefronts are great, but will never replace brick-and-mortar businesses"
Nay Sayer, State of Denial (2008)

All of these statements share a common thread. They were all made with the same narrow minded view of present day without looking much beyond the nose. We are in a time when we should know better than to arrive at blanket conclusions that contain the word "never".

Before you have images of empty lots and crumbling buildings in the ghost towns that used to be major shopping centers, this is not the extreme that this question may appear to predict, but make no mistake, brick-and-mortar businesses are going the way of the VCR, save only a few. In the next ten to twenty years virtually all storefronts will be online.

To some people this notion is unfathomable, but the evidence is in front of us. Show me a business that doesn't have their website on the internet today, and I'll show you a business scrambling to play catch-up in the next two years. The internet today is riding the crest of resurgence. Gone and forgotten are the days when the dot-com became dot-bomb and then were dot-gone. Now they're dot dot dotopen ended.

Naysayers like to bring us down to earth and say that there are aspects of shopping that still needs us to visit a physical store. This may be true for now, but you can also bet that online stores are enthusiastically looking for ways to counter this argument- and they have already begun. There are already "virtual model" sites that let you create a figure based on your measurements, then see how different outfits look before you buy.

Online shopping has been growing every year while brick-and-mortar businesses complain of lackluster sales. The older, less computer savvy people who witnessed the dawn of the internet and remembers what a typewriter looks like may still hang on to the traditional way. But the generation who grew up with the computer being a household staple together the stove and the fridge know of nothing else but the internet.

This is the era we're in today. From the ubiquitous iPod seemingly at one with the ears, to the frantic thumbs tapping out the millionth text message with amazing ease, this generation, at home on the internet, is shaping the inevitable outcome.

Today we don't step out of the house without "googling" the item we want to buy. Whether it's checking pricing, availability, reviews, no shopping trip begins without doing the research. Depending on the item we may opt for the free shipping, but even though some may still venture out the door for now, the clock is ticking. It's only a matter of time.

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