Technology Impact on Retail - Research Paper Example

Telephone, fax, and non-cash payment systems such as credit cards have existed for quite some time. However, the introduction of computers and internet has changed the face of retail industry in America immensely. Internet related technologies have revolutionized the retail sector like no other technology before. Instead of cash payments, credit card payment systems started to conquer the retail sector in America. Moreover, online purchasing started to dominate offline purchasing as a result of the introduction of new technologies.

Amazon, Ebay etc like online retailers started to dominate American retail industry in recent time at the expense of many of the prominent offline retailers. Skorupa (2012) mentioned that Amazon’s forecasted revenue for 2012 is $60 billion (Skorupa, 2012). eBay is also not far behind. The popularity of online retail business forced offline retailers such as Wal-Mart to expand their operation in virtual world. This paper analyses the impacts of technology in American retail sector. Technology in American retail sector Internet technologies are being employed at every stage in the retail industry in America at present.

Majority of the consumers are using credit cards for paying their bills even though the concerns about credit card forgery like crimes are there. Modern internet technologies are capable of reducing the threats from credit card forgeries up to certain extent which encourage people to increase their cashless transactions in retail sector further. Earlier, it was difficult for retailers to manage their supply chain effectively because of lack of communication channels or ineffectiveness of existing communication channels.

However, at present supply chain management in retail industry have been improved a lot with the introduction of internet related technologies. It is easy for the supply chain managers to know the actual inventory of goods at a particular place with the help of a finger touch. Earlier, the information supplied by the managers of the retail shops was used by the supply chain managers to know the inventory of a particular product in a shop. At present, supply chain managers need not wait till the information reaches their table from the retail shop mangers to know these details.

Selling statistics of different goods from different shops may reach the table of supply chain manager at the very moment of selling of certain item. For example, a retail shop owner needs to register the details of the customer at the time of selling of Samsung/Apple mobile phones. Thus the supply chain managers will get the information about the present inventory of an item in a particular store any time they want. Current customers have more shopping choices like brick & mortar stores and e-shops.

“Brick & Mortar stores refers to retail shops that are located in a building as opposed to an online shopping destination, door-to-door sales, kiosk or other similar site not housed within a structure”(Waters, 2012). One of the major drawbacks of online retailing is the inability of purchasers to get the physical presence of the product. Brick & Mortar stores help consumers to get the physical presence of the product before they take any purchasing decisions. Ghemawat & Nueno (2006) pointed out that current inventory management systems are leaner due to better forecasting and communication tools.

They cited Spanish retailer Zara as an