Online retailing to get boost in near future
The internet has brought about many changes for consumers and businesses worldwide. The web is constantly providing ways for new devices and solutions to be created or used. The retail industry has been especially impacted by the internet, as businesses are increasingly going online to promote their products and services, as well as bolster sales. There are even retailers that operate solely online and ship items to where customers are. The industry is constantly changing, and experts believe that consumer purchases will only continue to rise for internet retailers.
Web businesses to see increase
According to a recent report by Forrester and Barclays, the online marketplace, except for Amazon, brought in $14 billion in transactions in 2011, writes Independent Retailer. This amount is anticipated to increase to $54 billion by 2015. Despite this high number of purchases, there are still some aspects that online retailers are missing and that retailer-owned products have. If these businesses want to increase operations and revenue, there are some methods that will need to be taken into consideration.
Returning items to internet marketplaces seemed to be a difficulty that shoppers faced. The study discovered that some of these retailers lack the information needed to successfully return items, such as an address to where it can be shipped to. Although convenience is a major advantage of buying from these businesses, the average wait time to get these products was high, at 4.57 days.
Authors of the study stated that if online marketplace retailers can put more efforts into fixing these problems, then they can provide the same satisfaction and service that traditional and retailer-owned items do, writes the source.
Online sales for small retailers increasing
The month of August proved to be successful for many small retailers who offer products online. According to Internet Retailer, recent research by an industry software firm found that the amount of web sales for these businesses rose by 6 percent from the the same time last year. Some sectors performed better than others, as sporting goods sold more on the internet than last year. This was seen by a 32 percent increase from August 2011. Booksellers were also successful, as they experienced a boost of 20 percent from the same month last year.