With the rapid development of the Internet industry, the cross-border e-commerce industry has taken off. The emergence of the cross-border e-commerce industry has had a huge impact on physical stores. More and more people will choose to shop online. Today, let’s talk about the differences between e-commerce and physical stores in Singapore.
1. Sales channels.
Cross-border e-commerce sells through the Internet platform, and consumers can shop through electronic devices at home or anywhere. Physical stores require consumers to go to the store in person to buy products.
2. Geographical scope.
Cross-border e-commerce has no geographical restrictions and can sell to the global market. Physical stores are limited to specific geographical locations and can only target local consumers.
3. Marketing methods.
Cross-border e-commerce advertises through Internet platforms, such as social media, search engines and e-commerce platforms. Physical stores generally use traditional advertising media, such as television, radio, newspapers and outdoor advertising.
4. Shopping experience.
Cross-border e-commerce provides a convenient and fast shopping experience. Consumers can place orders and shop using their mobile phones or computers anytime, anywhere. While physical stores provide a shopping experience of interacting with the physical products, consumers can personally experience the products and immediately get the satisfaction of buying.
5. Customer cost.
The huge cost of acquiring e-commerce customers mainly includes traffic cost, channel cost and advertising cost. In contrast, the cost of acquiring traditional physical stores is relatively small, because physical stores are usually located in specific areas, and their potential customers are mainly residents of the area. Physical stores can attract customers through various promotional measures and advertising, and residents are usually more likely to become loyal customers of physical stores.
6. Customer loyalty.
There is a difference in the loyalty of e-commerce and physical store customers. Relatively speaking, the loyalty of e-commerce customers is much lower. In the Internet age, e-commerce customers can search and buy the goods they need through various channels. As long as the price is relatively low and the service quality is not much different, these customers tend to churn. In contrast, physical store customers are different. Many residents value convenience more. When the price difference is not big, they usually frequent a physical store.
For e-commerce, only by expanding the scale and enriching the product categories can it attract more customers. Of course, prices also need to be competitive. The cost of customer acquisition and maintenance of e-commerce is actually equivalent to the store rent of physical stores. The rebates and other fees that e-commerce charges from suppliers and distributors are not much different from those of physical stores. Although some department stores do not charge rent, they will extract a certain percentage of sales, which is usually about 30% of sales, which is not much different from the cost of customer acquisition of e-commerce. Therefore, compared with physical stores, the cost of customer acquisition of e-commerce does not have a clear competitive advantage.
The above is the content related to the difference between e-commerce and physical stores in Singapore. Singapore’s cross-border e-commerce and offline physical stores have great differences in sales channels, geographical scope, marketing methods and shopping experience. However, cross-border e-commerce will eventually replace offline physical stores, and the best way is to combine physical stores with e-commerce platforms. That’s all about the difference between e-commerce and physical stores in Singapore. If you want to know more about it, you can follow Lianlian Cross-border Payment.