Competetive Advantage

Due Day 3

Brick-and-mortar stores and online businesses have different perspectives regarding competitive advantage.

Respond to the following in a minimum of 175 words:

With their different perspectives in mind, evaluate how and why their strategies differ. What recommendations would you make to brick-and-mortar stores to capitalize on how they can compete more effectively with online businesses?

ANSWER

Competitive Advantage

Brick- and mortar stores are stores whereby people have to shop physically by going to the shop. This, however, is gradually being taken over by the e-commerce market and online shopping. However, the brick and mortar shops have a competitive advantage because they can give their customers the best of both worlds. One of the problems experienced in online shopping is sometimes the customers do not get what they want. Brick and mortar shops can outdo online shops by conducting reverse showrooms whereby people browse their products online and then physically get what they need from the store (He et al., 2021). the perspective of brick-and-mortar shops differs from that of online shopping because, in brick-and-mortar, the customers browse and buy what they need physically. While online shopping, one can get what they want from the comfort of their homes.

The world is becoming digitized very fast, and therefore in the coming years, brick and mortar stores might not be able to compete with online shops. To compete with the online and digital businesses, the companies and stores need to create web-based shops whereby their customers can shop online (He et al., 2021). This gives them the upper hand over the online businesses because they cater to online and physical shoppers. There is an advantage to both the physical and online world, and therefore brick and mortar shops have a competitive advantage by getting set up online.

References

He, B., Gupta, V., & Mirchandani, P. (2021). Online selling through O2O platform or on your own? Strategic implications for local Brick-and-Mortar stores. Omega, 102424.