Challenges and Opportunities of Offline Retail

                                        
Over the years, great attention was given to the retail industry. The slowdown of online retail growth, accelerated transformation for physical stores and the introduction of the concept “New Retail” indicated that offline retail worldwide is facing both challenges and opportunities.


Difficulties

There are problems of the offline retail economy exposed in recent years, such as inadequate effective supply, operational inefficiency and so on. At present, the development of offline retail is facing unprecedented challenges, rapid development of online retail, rising operating costs are one of the numerous factors that have affected offline retail.

According to some statistics, about 1.8 billion people worldwide purchase goods online in 2018. During the same year, global e-retail sales reached 2.8 trillion dollars and it is expected that by 2021, there would be a growth of 4.8 trillion dollars.

However, in comparison, global offline retail itself suffered a major setback during the last two years. Massive store-closing, redundancies, transformations, capital chain rupture, share collapse and even bankruptcies have led to customer drain for offline retailers. 


Challenges

Different Types of Rising Costs are Remaining Bottlenecks for Retail Economy
 
So why e-commerce impacts physical stores a lot? The reasons can be summarized as follows: cost pressure, internet-based technologies and big data. Along with the above, e-commerce has gained both cost and price advantages. 

Currently, a number of traditional retailers are trying to use e-commerce platforms while the result does not meet the expectation. It can be attributed largely to the challenges of technical and fund inputs.


Opportunities

Omni-Channel Retail Strategy to Guide Offline Retail Transformation
　
It appears that it was no longer a significant issue to discuss which should figure more prominently. In fact, different retail market patterns enjoy a competitive-cooperative relationship. Integration of each other's advantages has become a theme hereafter. 

Consequently, an omnichannel retail strategy shall be adopted to not only providing customers with a professional shopping experience but also encouraging diversified retail modes.