WORLDVIEW: Many dying retailers deserve their apocalyptic fate

By Felicity Duncan .Around the world, retailers are collapsing. In the US, entire shopping malls have become hollow, echoing ghost towns as consumers desert physical shops for online options like Amazon. In the UK, online shopping has gutted the high street, leaving some of London's biggest retail spaces empty. And, of course, in South Africa, the combination of weak economic growth, widespread unemployment, the shift online, and negative consumer sentiment has sent some of the country's biggest retailers to the bankruptcy courts..The loss of historic brands is sad, as is the loss of many thousands of retail jobs around the world. But the grim reality is that many retailers have brought this "retail apocalypse" firmly upon themselves..___STEADY_PAYWALL___.Failure to offer quality service.Physical stores have two main advantages over online stores: you can physically try/see/touch the products on offer and you can get personalised attention from the human beings who work there. Unfortunately, they have squandered these advantages, particularly the value of one-on-one service..I recently encountered this reality face-to-face. Last night, I headed to a local sporting goods store to pick up a new pair of running shoes. I arrived at the doors at 7:13pm, giving me plenty of time to grab the shoes I wanted and pay for them before the store closed at 7:30pm. Except that a store worker was standing in the doorway preventing anyone from entering because "we're close to closing.".I argued with him to no avail. I tweeted at the chain about the incident and received no reply. I will, naturally, never visit that store again. There are other places to buy shoes, including the internet where I won't have to deal with rudeness and annoying hours..Read also: JSE retail companies are in the bargain bin, but beware – some are cheap for a reason.My experience was shared with about five other people who tried to visit the store 15 minutes before closing. If enough of those people feel like me and this happens every night, the store will close, and the worker in question will lose his job. And frankly, he will have no one to blame but himself and the manager who allowed him to turn paying punters away for 20 minutes..Retailers have failed to invest in their staff. Workers are paid very little and have little motivation to make the shopping experience pleasant. Training is also minimal. I've been in a dozen stores where workers were unable to answer even the simplest questions about a product. For every helpful staff member I have encountered, I've met a dozen who can barely be bothered to reply when spoken to..With such low service standards prevailing at stores, it's no surprise that shoppers have turned so eagerly to online alternatives..Failure to adapt.Online shopping did not launch a sneak attack against traditional retailers. Amazon made no secret about what it was doing, and Amazon and eBay were launched in 1995. Big stores have known about online shopping for almost 25 years now..Yet precious few traditional retailers have made anything but the most desultory attempts to create attractive online stores. Again, I have seen this myself. I recently ordered two items of clothing online from a large UK retailer. According to the site, my order would take five business days to arrive (a far cry from the one-day delivery Amazon offered me in the US, but still acceptable)..Read also: Strategic changes at Amazon point to retail challenges – The Wall Street Journal.I received no tracking information, and after ten business days, I called the store. My order had been split into two parcels, one of which had tracking information, the other of which was a ghost. Several calls and 22 business days later, I received my packages..This is an unacceptable level of service in 2019. The chain in question is not a one-person independent store. It's a large, multi-national chain. It's inexcusable to be doing online so badly at this point. I read recently that the chain is in serious financial trouble and I am not at all surprised..Industries change. Technologies emerge, consumers adapt, and the things that worked yesterday stop working today. The fact that almost 25 years into the online retail revolution many large, global retailers still cannot fulfil a simple online order is an indictment of the industry. It indicates a shocking degree of arrogance and management incompetence..Similarly, far too many retailers have failed to adapt to changing consumer preferences. Shoppers today tend to clump on either the high or the low end. Ultra-discount retailers are doing OK, and very high-end retailers are doing OK, but the vast middle is feeling the pain (this is true in sectors from clothing to appliances to groceries). But again, retailers in the middle-market are failing to adapt, and so they're dying..Some of the chains that have disappeared or are in danger of disappearing are ones that I will miss. But if retailers insist on ignoring changes in their industry and persist in delivering poor service, it's hard to see their demise as anything other than natural selection at work.

WORLDVIEW: Many dying retailers deserve their apocalyptic fate

Related Stories