Website sales have become so popular that other retailers, even those you would never think would take the online approach, have come online. A recent example would, of course, be giant retailers like Wal-Mart, which are now competing with Amazon rather than Amazon competing with them. Amazon recently celebrated its 20th anniversary with “huge” sales for its Amazon Prime Day. Wal-Mart retaliated by starting its own sales and making them last longer than Amazon’s Prime Day. Other examples, some unorthodox, are pizza companies that now allow their consumers to go online and buy products with their computers, even track them.
Even looking back a decade, we were traveling to local video stores to rent movies we wanted to see. That slowly changed with the movies coming through the mail. That idea quickly morphed into online ways of watching new TV and movies. With the emergence of Netflix, an online movie provider, it has left many small businesses out of business, but at the same time it has made our lives much easier. We no longer have to go to a video store to search for movies, we no longer have to remember to return the physical copy, and we no longer have to worry about late fees. All of this has been fixed with the rise of the online video business.
The emergence of online businesses, especially, has saved consumers a lot of money and that is why we have embraced it so well. It is easier to access the information we need rather than looking at advertisements on paper or even in a newspaper. Now we just Google whatever we are looking for and we will find numerous possible purchase options.
With this, it is easy to compare the prices of each store and take the cheapest one to Amazon, if we want to match the price, or simply buy on the site where we saw the article. This is not a problem because most online websites offer free shipping if we’re willing to wait a bit, and some websites offer discounts for membership. Online business has changed many elements in our lives as a consumer point of view and with continuous innovations we are moving in a direction that will only get better. As of now, Amazon is testing one-day delivery, more stores are being added to its price match policy, and new items (like food) are being offered more widely. It’s amazing to see how far we have come since the emergence of online retailers in such a short time, it will be amazing to see where we go.