Before you read: some questions to help you think about the topic and the words you might need.
What is your opinion of online shopping?
What effect is online shopping having on the normal way of shopping?
How are traditional shops competing with online shopping?
More and more shoppers are simply coming into shops, trying out products and then leaving to buy online at a discount. Not only do retailers feel used, they are losing business, and some have even been forced to close shop.
Of course we, as consumers, are allowed to look at products where we want and buy them where we want, but the costs of maintaining a retail shop must be paid for somehow. If those costs are not paid through purchases from those shops, how will they be paid – store shopping fees to customers? Probably not, but the basic differences in prices online and in shops, is making a real problem for brick-and-mortar shop retailers.
So what can these retailers do?
There is hope. One promising tactic is retailer cooperation. This tactic has been successfully used by The Bike Cooperative, a buying group of more than 300 independent bike shops across the US. These local dealers have joined together to share expertise, pool buying power and cut costs in order to better compete with larger chain shops and online competitors that threaten the success of their businesses. The cooperative, started in 2003, offers marketing services, group-buying discounts, shared training programs, and reduced credit card processing fees to its members. This is a success story about how a group like this was able to enter the eCommerce age.
Early last year, The Bike Cooperative and its members saw the challenge of online sales. Bike dealers’ sales were falling even as endurance sports were on the rise. And it was easy to see that a major cause of this was online sales. Powerful new competitors like Amazon.com and Backcountry.com had entered the cycling market and started to lure customers out of the bike dealers’ shops with better online prices. That did not necessarily mean that they had less people in their shop, just that those people were now trying out more products, and getting the same amount of advice, but buying less.
Rather than throw up their hands or complain to the vendors that this was not fair, the bike dealers’ response was to fight fire with fire. The Bike Coop decided to create an eCommerce website and order management solution with Shopatron. Their solution, BikeStoreGuys.com, is a single central eCommerce website that sells aggressively online, then sends all sales to the bike shop closest to the customer. Instead of having to compete with Amazon.com individually, the member stores of the cooperative share their resources to compete as a single unit. Smart. They now cooperatively invest in online marketing to drive shoppers into their single online store and coordinate promotions to drive sales based on their tight partnerships with vendors.
Guessing meaning from context (the words around that word or phrase).
Try to guess the meaning of the words in bold and match them with their closest meaning from the choices in the right. The answers are below the table.
|
brick-and-mortar |
A |
1 |
Many put their ability together to form one group to be able to purchase because together they have a lot of money |
|
tactic |
B |
2 |
increasing |
|
pool buying power |
C |
3 |
A physical building, not online |
|
endurance |
D |
4 |
Compete, use the same weapons to compete |
|
on the rise |
E |
5 |
Very strong links between individual people or groups of people or companies |
|
lure |
F |
6 |
To surrender, to give up, agree to failure |
|
throw up their hands |
G |
7 |
To attract |
|
fight fire with fire |
H |
8 |
Ability to keep continuing without stopping |
|
tight partnerships |
I |
9 |
A plan to beat someone, a method to win |
A=3, B=9, C=1, D=8, E=2, F=7, G=6, H=4, I=5
Some example sentences using the new words to help you to better understand their meaning.
1. These days you can study online or go to a bricks-n-mortar university.
2. One tactic of cinemas to get people to come at quiet times is to offer half price tickets for early morning times.
3. Airline groups such as Star Alliance pool their buying power together to get aviation fuel at a discounted price.
4. Running a marathon requires a lot of endurance.
5. Vietnam is one of the South East Asian countries that is on the rise.
6. To lure people to work in Saudi Arabia, companies offer large salaries.
7. We could not get a ticket to fly to Rome, so we threw up our hands because there was nothing we could do.
8. The South Korean president said that we would fight fire with fire if North Korea continues to cause trouble.
9. Samsung and Home Plus from England formed a tight partnership to make Home Plus shops in Korea.
Some discussion questions using the new words to help you better understand the word meaning and how to use them correctly. Try to use the words in your answer.
1. In your opinion, what are the advantages and disadvantages of brick-n-mortar shops compared to online shopping.
2. What do you think of this bicycle retailers tactics to lure customers away from online buying?
3. What other business do you know that pool their buying power?
4. What types of sports do you think are endurance sports? What does it mean to endure in a sporting way?
5. Does the reading say why cycling is on the rise? Why do you think it is on the rise?
6. Why did the retailers now throw up their hands?
7. How did the cycle retailers fight fire with fire?
8. What could be the problems with tight business partnerships?
ECK Education
