erstellt am 09-06-2018 um 07:52 Uhr      

E-commerce has also threatened many traditional ways of doing business. When people flock to online shopping sites for the Christmas rush, they naturally spend less in real-world stores. Savvy existing businesses such as Wal-Mart have tried to offset the threat by seizing the opportunity: "bricks and clicks" (having real world stores and a seamlessly integrated website) is now generally seen as the way to go. Shoppers have become equally savvy and are adept at inspecting products in real-world stores before buying online, or using websites to locate local branches of stores where they can inspect and purchase exactly the goods they want. It's important to bear in mind that e-commerce still represents only a fraction of all the trade that we do (for 2017, the US Department of Commerce reported e-commerce reaching about 8.9 percent of total retail sales, as shown in the chart below)—but that fraction has been growing very steadily, and will keep doing so.