In Sofia Bautista’s blog about in-store and online shopping, she relates these two kinds of shopping to the idea of ‘disruptive innovation’. ‘Disruptive innovation‘ is the idea that new entrants in an industry gradually take the place of those already-exist competitors. In Sofia’s blog, she states that ‘there is still much value in shopping in-stores’, and thus in-stores shopping cannot be easily displaced by online shopping. I agree with her.
Online shopping, as a product of the rapidly developing internet, does provide consumers with a lot of convenience. However, in-stores shopping is still irreplaceable for some reasons: for example, there is still a big portion of consumers who concern about the safety of online shopping, and in-store shopping with friends or family is always a good way of enhancing relationships, etc.
Besides, for a disruptive innovator to successfully displace an already-exist competitor, it’s necessary that the already-exist one ‘opens the door to’ disruptive innovators, but as we all know, retailers didn’t give online shopping this chance. And the only difference between online and in-store shopping is the indoor shopping and delivery service. Thus, these two kinds of shopping are not in conflict; they can both exist without displacing one another.