How Online Stores Have Affected Local Retailers and How It's Looking For 2025

Dec 30, 2024

The year 2020 was a big year for online stores. When COVID-19 hit the whole world, no one could have anticipated how massively the shopping experience would change. This led to a global increase in online shopping sales and it was an added advantage that it was so convenient and easy to shop online. You could shop from the comfort of your home, and all your goods could be delivered right to your door or gate. Social media worked to highlight particular online shopping stores such as Shein.

Local entrepreneurs who did not have any physical stores and businesses like Shein and Temu saw this as an opportunity to grow their businesses. Local stores either had to adapt or shut down their stores. Edcon, which closed its Boardmans stores in 2018 struggled to keep Edgars and Jet stores open when the COVID-19 restrictions were put in place. It did not make it easier that competition arose from online stores like Shein that had fashionable clothing at a reasonable cost.

Edgars and Jet stores would have potentially shut down had they not been salvaged by Retailability and The Foschini Group, respectively. Edgars clothing can now be found online, while Jet clothing can be found on the Bash website. This shows the growing influence of online shopping on retail stores. Of the businesses that closed down, many of these were construction businesses (14.2%), food and beverage companies (9.9%) and hospitality businesses (9,7%). The one thing that all these businesses have in common is that they all depend on creating an ambiance where people meet in a particular environment and this cannot be experienced by shopping online so these businesses suffered greatly.

On the other hand, other businesses grew significantly popular. The Takealot Group which consists of Takealot, Superbalist and Mr D Food is one example. Takealot is one of South Africa’s biggest online retailers. With a wide range of categories to choose from, Takealot has become a one stop online retailer. With categories ranging from appliances, to baby & toddler things, to books and courses and homeware among other things Takealot has a range of things to shop.

Imagine needing a new fridge, instead of driving and walking to many different stores to find a fridge you like you could just scroll through your screen to find it. One of the benefits of online shopping is just how easily you get to see a range of different products in a short span of time. Superbalist has a range of clothing to choose from. This is one way that retailers have made an online presence. Through Superbalist you could find over 450 brands, both local and international brands. The addition of buy now and pay later options allow you to get something now and only pay it back over a period of time interest free.

From this, we can only deduce that online shopping will grow more significantly in 2025 as people love convenience and ease. Technology has, in a lot of ways, made life more easier and as it advances we can only imagine that the aim is to make life easier for everyone and this includes the future of online shopping.