E-Commerce Hurting The Traditional Mall, Says Report

It’s no secret that the modern day consumer enjoys making purchases while sitting comfortably at home. With each passing year, online shopping becomes more and more popular. The convenience of being able to shop without leaving home is too great to overlook. As a result, many of today’s consumers don’t even bother visiting traditional brick-and-mortar stores anymore.

At least, this is what is being reported by Karolyn Coorsh of CTV News. She notes that there is a noticeable decline in the amount of traffic being found in malls across Canada and the United States. In particular, Kipling Queensway Mall in Toronto’s west end is struggling to find tenants. Many of the store lots are vacant.

In Toronto’s east end, Malvern Town Centre is facing a similar crisis. It currently has an empty 70,000 square foot space where a No Frills grocery store used to be. The loss of this tenant isn’t the mall’s first. With Zellers and Target closing down, Malvern Town Centre has had its fair share of stores leaving behind vacant real estate.

According to Reengineering Retail author, Doug Stephens, there are “enormous” changes taking place in the world of retail. And it all has to do with the growing popularity of online shopping.

“It really is a bit of a revolution,” he exclaimed during an interview on CTV’s \”Your Morning\”, “Consumers are increasingly moving online and what’s really concerning about that for Canadian retailers, is that 60 cents of every incremental dollar that gets spent online now, is going directly to Amazon. It’s not even going to conventional retailers, so there’s a lot of catch-up that needs to be made.”

At Canadian POS Corporation, we believe that all retailers should adopt an e-commerce solution. As Stephens has pointed out, most consumers are attracted towards retailers that are known for their online stores – Amazon being at the top of the pile. That said, a move towards offering products online is one that is proving to help retailers continue to turn profits. Evidently, it only makes sense for store owners to operate online as well as at physical places of business.

After all, online is where today’s kids “hang out”. Noting that malls used to be hubs for social interaction, Stephens points out that to attract young shoppers, an online store is practically mandatory. “If you were a young person, the mall was where you hung out, and now you hang out on Facebook, or you hang out on social media,” he was quoted as saying.

Stephens believes that online shopping’s popularity is going to grow rapidly, notes Coorsh. The 10 percent of all merchandise in Canada that is currently being purchased online is predicted to grow to upwards of 40 percent over the next ten years. If you’d like to ensure the growing success of your store, it would be wise to adopt an e-commerce solution so that you can sell your products online.

For more information about the e-commerce solution offered by Canadian POS Corporation, give us a call at 1-877-748-2884 or email us at info@localhost.