A Comparative Analysis: Online Shopping, High Street Retail Dynamics

This report examines the evolving relationship between online shopping and high street retail, analyzing the impact of e-commerce on traditional brick-and-mortar stores. It begins by defining online shopping as a convenient alternative and high street shopping as the core of city commerce, highlighting the shift in consumer preference towards online platforms. The report then delves into specific articles, including how John Lewis is expanding its online presence through strategies like 'click and collect,' the challenges faced by Kingfisher due to tax disparities between online and physical stores, and the warnings from tech investors about the need for high street businesses to adapt to the digital age. The conclusion synthesizes these findings, emphasizing the growing dominance of online shopping, the need for high street businesses to innovate, and the importance of governmental policies that level the playing field for all retail models. The report underscores the need for businesses to embrace online strategies and for policymakers to address the changing retail landscape.

Researching and Analysing
Data

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................1
ONLINE SHOPPING AND THE HIGH STREET....................................................................1
ARTICLE 1.................................................................................................................................2
ARTICLE 2.................................................................................................................................3
ARTICLE 3.................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Online shopping has developed in notoriety throughout the years, for the most part since
individuals think that its advantageous and simple to do shopping from the comfort of their
office or home. A standout amongst the most tempting component regarding online shopping,
especially amid holiday season, is it mitigates the need to hold up in long lines or look from store
to store for a specific thing. It is termed as the act which is used to purchase services and
products from the internet. On the other hand, High Street shopping is termed as the concept of
primary trade street of cities or towns. It is the main street where most of the principal shops are
being located and the market generally contains general public engaged to satisfy needs of public
(Luo, Ba and Zhang, 2012). Now a days, people are making there preference for online shopping
and this thing is hitting high street shopping badly.
TASK
ONLINE SHOPPING AND THE HIGH STREET
The web is quick turning into the goal of decision for customers, piling weight on
conventional blocks and mortar retailers who are attempting to stay aware of their online-only
adversaries, experts have cautioned that a string of a portion of the UK's most unmistakable
shops will report significant Christmas exchanging figures.
Sales growth of the various online stores are expected to make good increment in the
coming years. It has been analysed that there will be a maximisation of more than quarter as
more and more customers are turning towards the online shopping and getting away form high
street. Online deals have expanded by 18% year on year in UK - to be sure, as indicated by an
article in daily mail, 82% of British web clients routinely shop on the web. Be that as it may, on
the grounds that we are making various key buys over the web, does not imply that there isn't in
any case a place regarding high road retail occupations, the model has quite recently adjusted.
Click and Collect' offers a contrasting option to internet shopping with conveyance that
enables customers to explore potential buys in point on the web and even play out the exchange
at stage yet with the extra dependence of knowing precisely when and where you can gather your
buys (Kawaf and Tagg, 2012). The mind-boggling accomplishment of this administration is
being put down to the inexorably bustling existences of a number of the present buyers which
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make home conveyances difficult to organize however when 'information generation' is
requesting increasingly investigate time before making buys (Kacen, Hess and Chiang, 2013).
The increase in click and collect service, explains that requirement of big warehouse
inventories and stocks are maximising and with that there is a increase in staff; from staff of
operations who manage stock to customers service representative and warehouse administrators,
abundant role there in retail, even if traditional shop in high street get closed.
ARTICLE 1
From the article 1 which is in relation with outlet of John Lewis, a question can be
articulated that how John Lewis will make extension of its business to online shopping empire
through thousands of the corner store.
John Lewis is having a chain of departments store which are high end and are operating
all over the United Kingdom. The owner of the chain is John Lewis Partnership, and was
developed alongside the first store in mid of 1800s . It has its headquarter in London and doing
good with its high street stores and now wants to expand its business in online sector. The main
question which will arise now is how they will make expansion so that they can attract more and
more customers. John Lewis wants to make extend its reach of online empire with the assistance
of thousands of the corner shop (Doherty and Ellis-Chadwick, 2010). For the expansion, the
department store is making use of the collect+scheme, which will allow customers to return and
pick up products which they have purchased from website at up to 5000 autonomous
merchandising. Customers of the company will be able to collect products at around 1000 of the
outlets in Scotland, South west England and Northern Ireland at a charge of £ 3. They will also
be able to return goods by the network of collect+stores in free.
Mark Lewis, former boss of the collect+, will be owner of John Lewis online sector. He
assisted them in building a business that is co-owned by distribution company Yodel and bill
payment service Pay Point (Dennis and et.al., 2010).
Andrew Layton, who is a manager of omni channel growth at John Lewis, explained that
their main intention regarding the tie up with collect + is to make online shopping easy as due to
this customers need not to wait at their residence for the delivery of goods. It has been analysed
from the research that if the customers will not have convenience in their shopping than they will
go somewhere else. Because of the online services and business, John Lewis is able to double its
business from the past years and the company has expectation to make continuous growth as
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their web based business encouraged consumers to make shopping continuously and also
attracted various new customers. In this way company will make successful implementation of
their online business in the market and will achieve success and growth.
ARTICLE 2
The second article is in relation with Kingfisher Chief who warns to close store because
of high tax they are paying in comparison to the online firms. The question arise what made
kingfisher to take such decision.
The administration stands to miss out on one of its greatest wellsprings of income by
neglecting to change the assessment framework to assess internet offering, the head of one of the
UK's greatest retailers has cautioned (Demangeot and Broderick, 2010). Ian Cheshire, CEO of
Kingfisher, said he would close a fourth of his organization's stores were it not for long haul
leases and different game plans that will make the terminations costly. Rates of the business are
one of the greatest charges the faced by the retailer, with £120m going on the expense every
year.
There is a partiality which is done by government regarding the payment of tax, Cheshire
said that tax which is being paid by high street and online retailers are not same. Due to this,
company feels that there is a danger that the tax base will disappear. So due to this, company
made decision to shut down its few stores. They think that if they will make reduction in their
store, the tax of the government will fall. This means that 25% less stores means 25% less tax,
this thing has been warned by owner of Kingfisher, who explained that because of such there
will be no affect on profit and sales of the company (Chatterjee, 2010).
He further says that, advantage has been taken by online retailers to cut down their offline
competitors, who also have to give staffing cost, business rents apart from tax. Kingfisher is
Europe's biggest home change retailer having 1,000 stores or more in eight nations, under brands
which included B&Q, Castorama and BricoDepot. The organization utilizes around 80,000
individuals and deals in 2011-12 came to £10.8bn, of which the greater part originated from
outside the UK, chalking up pre-charge benefits of £807m. Company will not have any loss if
they will shut their few stores as they are having their presence online also in hardware and tools,
gardening products, paints, decorations, new kitchens etc.
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ARTICLE 3
The another article which is in relation with the view point of the Saul Klein a tech
investor, said that the country must wake up in relation with the digital growth. A question arise
that what factor is affecting growth of the UK high street market or business. He exclaimed that
various online companies like Amazon and Google have taken up the business of UK. Those
high street business should not have any type of casual behaviour now and must wake up to have
a business on internet.
Saul Klein, an accomplice in Index Ventures and previous CEO of Skype, said advanced
business was currently the third greatest supporter of the economy, in charge of 8% of GDP, yet
the City and the general population segment were snoozing to its essentialness. "American web
organizations like Google and Amazon have strolled in and had the lunch of the UK in media, in
travel, in retail – and they will not make their stoppage here. They will do it in different areas
like monetary administrations, convenience etc. All this is affecting retail businesses of UK and
taking its place.
In the previous two years Klein's organization has brought €1bn up in tech start-up and
development reserves. It is having 130-140 dynamic interests in organizations running from
merchant Net-a-Porter to budgetary administrations suppliers, for example, climate.com, a
protection business for ranchers worried about terrible climate pulverizing crops (Blázquez,
2014).
The company is now having mission of making transformation in its boardroom,
expecting that digital business will increase to 12.4% of the economy. Kodak company also get
destroyed due to online business and the same happened with HMV. So this is the warning for all
such companies to have their presence on internet.
He yielded there was a solid dread factor among speculators in UK after the dotcom blast
and 2003 bust, costs financial specialists billions, yet said there was a "mindfulness issue". "We
asked 20 organizations in the FTSE 100 the amount of their business was in advanced and just a
few could much answer the inquiry." Klein has been in chats with Downing Street regarding his
battle to help change business considering. He said the legislature was exceptionally steady and
had made passage level devices, for example, start-up visas for non-natives who need to dispatch
a UK's tech business.
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He said that to have a environment which can help in the growth of the business, there
must be a change in the approach. Every public sector and business must be forced in order to
make measurement of digital operations so that they can make proper growth and development
in the market (Barnes and Lea-Greenwood, 2010).
CONCLUSION
From the above report, which is being presented in regards with the online shopping and
the high street shopping, it has been analysed that online or web based shopping is getting
increased day by day and supporting well in the development of the economy. Online shopping
is being considered as the most convenient and easy shopping and allow customers with the wide
range of services and products at the same place an in reasonable price. On the other hand, high
street shopping wants investment of customers time and money and is not considered as method
of convenience. From the above discussed article of the John Lewis, it can be explained that they
can make extension of their business with the support of different strategies like click and collect
which will provide ease to the customers in their shopping.
The second article which is related with the case of Kingfisher explains that there is a
much difference in the tax rates which are given by high street businesses as compared to online
businesses. Owner of the company wants to shut down some of its businesses due to the
difference in the rates of tax. The government should make equal framework for all the
businesses in such kind of cases. Another article which is given by Saul Klein, explains that there
is a much growth in online or web based businesses now a days, so he wants to make aware to
each and every high street business to wake up and make efforts to have their presence online.
All such organisation can make good development and growth if they will make expansion of
their business online, this also allow them to make global reach and eventually assist in
generating more and more revenues.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Barnes, L. and Lea-Greenwood, G., 2010. Fast fashion in the retail store environment.
International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management. 38(10). pp.760-772.
Blázquez, M., 2014. Fashion shopping in multichannel retail: The role of technology in
enhancing the customer experience. International Journal of Electronic Commerce.
18(4). pp.97-116.
Chatterjee, P., 2010. Multiple-channel and cross-channel shopping behavior: role of consumer
shopping orientations. Marketing Intelligence & Planning. 28(1). pp.9-24.
Demangeot, C. and Broderick, A.J., 2010. Consumer perceptions of online shopping
environments: A gestalt approach. Psychology & Marketing. 27(2). pp.117-140.
Dennis, C., and et.al., 2010. The influences of social e-shopping in enhancing young women's
online shopping behaviour. Journal of Customer Behaviour. 9(2). pp.151-174.
Doherty, N.F. and Ellis-Chadwick, F., 2010. Internet retailing: the past, the present and the
future. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management. 38(11/12). pp.943-
965.
Kacen, J.J., Hess, J.D. and Chiang, W.Y.K., 2013. Bricks or clicks? Consumer attitudes toward
traditional stores and online stores. Global Economics and Management Review. 18(1).
pp.12-21.
Kawaf, F. and Tagg, S., 2012. Online shopping environments in fashion shopping: An SOR
based review. The Marketing Review. 12(2). pp.161-180.
Luo, J., Ba, S. and Zhang, H., 2012. The effectiveness of online shopping characteristics and
well-designed websites on satisfaction.
Panzone, L., and et.al., 2016. Socio-demographics, implicit attitudes, explicit attitudes, and
sustainable consumption in supermarket shopping. Journal of Economic Psychology.
55. pp.77-95.
Online
Ecommerce and the High Street. 2017. [Online]. Available
through:<http://www.drapersjobs.com/article/ecommerce-and-the-high-street-assessing-
the-impact-of-the-digital-age-on-high-street-retail/>. [Accessed on 14th August 2017].
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