The Covid-19 pandemic boosted the popularity of online shopping as people were stuck at home. However, coming out of lockdown, the shopping experience has changed, inspiring a new round of debate over whether brick-and-mortar stores can survive in the digital age.
“Going to the store … is a battle that leaves consumers feeling defeated,” largely because of “understaffing, inventory problems, and heavy-handed theft prevention,” wrote Whizy Kim in Vox. The problem with in-person shopping is two-fold on both the sellers’ and buyers’ sides. The shopping experience has become “miserable,” because retailers are “unable — or unwilling — to invest in stores, including the labor that makes a shopping trip go smoothly or not,” Kim added. “The discontent of customers and the woes of employees are viewed on parallel tracks instead of as mirrors.”
Read more at theweek.com