The only advantage local retail stores have is immediacy. You can buy it as fast as you can drive there (and park/find it in the store/wait in line). Amazon has almost every other advantage. Ive come to find shopping local retail stores more and more frustrating. Shopping without reviews or videos, and having to flag down employees to help you locate items. It's really hard to beat online shopping with one day or two day shipping. Not impossible, but challenging. Target, Best Buy, and other generic mass retailers would be hurt the most
Yeah, but most of the time your local retailers will not have the right product in stock (unless you are very vague about your requirements).
On top of that, local stores are annoying: it takes time to go there, you need to deal with traffic, weather condition, sometimes shop employees being too intrusive and wanting to see you additional services (or recommending you bad products), waiting in line just to pay. etc... It's just not worth anymore.
Amazon delivers at my door usually 2 days after I order something. In case of defect they even come at my door to pick the malfunctioning product.
They are clearly doing what's BEST for customers. I don't even understand why local shops who have stores a few kms away from me don't even offer delivery services. They don't even think about improving anything, and they well deserve to disappear. No regrets.
No, local retail stores can be (depending on what you're shopping for) a lot more fun to shop at. You get to talk to salespeople and other customers, and you get to browse around the store.
Now most shopping isn't fun. Toilet paper? click But if I decide I want to take up drawing? I'm going to drive to a store, look around, and have fun.
But I certainly agree with your last point. As I see it, the advantage of Amazon Prime is that I never have to go to Target.
I just couldn't care less about reviews and those videos. It's just self-selection, doesn't usually tell me much. If I'm shopping for groceries, I don't need reviews, thanks. If I'm shopping for electronics, if it's a small purchase, I don't need reviews. If it's a bigger purchase, I will read specialty review sites, not what Tom the hipster or Joe Bob has to say. Ever read YouTube comments? That's basically what I think of user reviews from the general public. I don't tend to flag down employees at Target though. :)
Maybe this will put a small dent more in the profits, I don't know, but I don't think it's going to be revolution or anything.
Theoretically, being able to try the product before purchase is another advantage. Particularly for me where it seems no one complains about terrible user interfaces or noise anywhere near enough in reviews.
But in practice, outside of clothing and furniture, very few stores are set up to allow this almost at all. So screw them.
Returning stuff adds additional complexity for consumers (you have to repack it and drive to a drop-off point) and eats into profit margins, especially for non-clothing items that can no longer be sold as new.
