With the advances technology has made in the last century, consumers are now able to get anything they want, from anywhere in the world. Online shopping has taken customers and businesses by storm with the convenience and variety it offers. E-commerce services can be considered a disruptive innovation to retail businesses, seeing as so many people can shop for anything they need online. While online shopping definitely poses a threat to retail stores sales, I think there is still much value to shopping in store, as opposed to shopping online.

Matthew Torres compares in-store and online shopping using customer values, such as availability, variety, price, etc. I am reminded of how we talked in class about different companies of the same industry being pressured by consumer demands. In-store and online shops emphasize the values that they have to offer to shopping experiences (i.e. atmosphere and customer service in-store, and more deals and product variety online). This pretty much leaves the choice to the consumers, depending on their preferences.

I think there is still much value in shopping in-stores, so I don’t consider it outdated at all. In fact, I think that the introduction of online shopping improves my in-store shopping experiences. Looking for what I want online is much more convenient than looking in-stores. So I think in this case, the disruptive innovation did not displace retail stores, but they are able to co-exist and advance the industry.

Photo: http://recommender.strands.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/small.jpg