Everyone shops online these days. It’s safe, it’s secure and it’s quick. It also means a customer can find anything they want, there and then, without having to trot all over town or get someone to order something for them, which they then have to pick up on another day. Our question, then, is this: is ecommerce web design boarding up the high street?
The short answer to that one is “yes”. Even major brand stores have less and less stock actually on their shelves these days. The only area of branded business that really booms, out in the “real world” (i.e., away from cyberspace) is clothing. And that’s because people still prefer to try things on before they buy them. The rest – it’s either dead or dying. You can see it everywhere you go. All over the city, the high street is giving way to the front room, the bedroom, and the Internet connection.
Ecommerce web design has reached a zenith in the last year or so. Prior to 2010, potential customers were still pretty edgy about buying things online, because they felt they were leaving themselves open to identity theft and bank fraud. As stricter and stricter safety protocols have been built into commerce web packages, though, and the banks themselves have developed a pretty iron clad set of measures for trumping online identity fraud, the confidence of the customer has risen sharply. Studies show that product searches are rising daily on the Internet, which suggests that shopping is too. And who can blame the customers for switching sore feet and limited availability for the comforts of their own home and fingertip access to every product in the world? Ecommerce web design is emptying the London high street of customers for everything except clothes and food. They won’t be far behind.
