Can Online Sales Ever Overtake Onsite Sales?

The rate, at which people are turning to the internet to purchase items from weekly groceries to jewellery, including anything in between, is on the increase. Statistics are showing that online shopping is currently increasing in value tremendously, even over a year. In particular statistics on Christmas shopping show online sales to have made a huge jump in value compared to the Christmas’s of a year or two ago.

This is a positive cycle for those retailers who have embraced online retail in addition to offline retail. It leads to a greater the range of products that are available online, the greater the number of people who will use the internet to purchase products. This then contributes to increased choice as other retailers provide an online offering.

The major question is, will online retail as a whole ever become more important than offline retail. This is unlikely since there are some products that are unsuitable for complete migration from offline to online. There are a few industries in which the transition is possible due to the nature of the products being provided. The best option for everyone is a mixture of online and offline for all industries.

This allows everyone to do things the way they prefer rather than forcing the consumer to do something in a way they don’t want to do it in. An example of the changing of online and offline retail is the sale of drugs like Viagra. These drugs have always been available in pharmacies since they require a prescription. Recently, they have become more easily obtainable on the internet from a variety of different sites.

The ease with which Viagra and its alternates, herbal Viagra and generic Viagra, can be purchased online makes the choice of where to buy the product very simple in most people’s minds. The problem with buying medication or drugs over the internet is that you have no guarantee of their authenticity or their effectiveness. This can leave you in a position where you have paid for Viagra, but what you get is something very inferior.

Problems of that sort have had a large impact on the trust with which the internet as a whole is regarded, as well as the chance that a person will shop online again. To combat the increased online sales of Viagra, and therefore the falling offline sales of Viagra, there has been a move to make offline sales as easy as online sales. This then diminishes the attraction of online sales of Viagra for some people.