Mankind has been witnessing innumerable wars with the hefty loss of life and property and most of them were fought for only one reason, "place". The acquisitiveness of rulers was the major reason for the every battle fought and this reason continues till date. In this modern era of self-driven cars, mankind is again standing in the battleground, but this time, it is not being fought with bloodshed but with moneyshed.
There was a time when people used to search offline and buy offline, then the internet came and helped people to search online and buy offline. Then came the e-commerce which marked the beginning of people searching offline and buying online. It all started with books which developed in stages to apparels to electronics to furniture to the grocery to medicines to food. Nowadays, you can virtually get anything and everything with just a few touches on your smartphone, your virtual wallet and, of course, the internet.
There is a continuous war between the offline space and online space in every area, whether the high investment categories of jewelry, electronics, gadgets and mobile phones to medium investment categories of apparels and footwears to low investment categories of grocery and foods.
Each side is fighting this war with their own weapons and armors. First of these weapons is the mode of payment. While offline has the tried and tested modes of payment of cash or cards, online has the preferred mode of payment as the virtual wallet. Each of these payment options has some advantages over the other and therefore, each side is also utilizing each other's weapons to neutralize the power of each other. While online has always used card payment, offline has started keeping handy the virtual wallet payment option.
The second weapon on which online rely is discounting and offline, on the other hand, has an armor of physicality against the online's weapon. There is a continuous see-saw going on between both spaces, one may win the small battle but the war is still going on. Both the sides realized the state of indecisiveness when each side's strategies and weapons are countered by the other side's counter-attack and armory.
But the course of this war is changing with the commissioning of war spies. The offline is going online and vice versa and in this way, spies are being deployed on each side.
The examples of offline present online are Aditya Birla (trendin.com & abof.com), future group (http://shop.bigbazaardirect.com), on the other hand, online firms like ferns & petals, lenskart, amazon and many more, are entering into the race of omnipresence by establishing offline centers.
It is said, someone is always benefited from anything that happens anywhere in the world and here also, there is someone who is the beneficiary of this ongoing war. You must have read the famous childhood story of the fight between two cats and a monkey. While two cats kept on fighting on a piece of cake, it was the monkey who took advantage and enjoyed to the fullest.
Today, online is although making huge revenues and increased its turnover manifolds but is incurring incomparable losses due to heavy discounting. If we take the case of India, the combined losses of the terrific trio which includes Flipkart, Amazon, and Snapdeal in India is Rs.5052 Crores only in FY 2015-2016.
Due to the fear of losing customers, offline panicked and started giving more discounts than it used to offer and, in turn, reduced its profitability. The only entity which is getting benefit out of this is the customer. You are smart enough to figure out who are the cats here and who is the monkey.
The major question which now arises is, how and when will this war end and who will win this war?
Many experts say that the ability of online to offer alluring discounts will end soon and by that time major offline will be present online but most online will not be present offline and those which will be present, to a minuscule level.
But the deciding factor in this war is the power of followers each side has. The followers are the customers which are loyal to the spaces.
There are two groups of customers, for one group, look and feel of the things which they are buying matters more than their comfort but for the second group, comfort and choice matter more than the ability to look and feel. This has changed the buying habits of the second group of customers and they follow online whereas first follow offline.
The second group of customers is strengthening because the majority of urbanized generation Y and Z and a part of urban generation X are following online. But semi-urbanized and rural generation X, Y and Z which forms the majority of the world population still rely on offline.
In this war of places, online is giving a good fight to the offline, but the latter is firmly holding its grounds on the basis of its large followers and unparalleled armor. Online has deployed deadly weapons, backed by its followers, but it will not be able to sustain for a long period of time in this war unless and until it deploys more spies and increase the return per customer.
Each side should realize that they are being made cat and the monkey is clapping in the state of euphoria because he is getting everything at huge discounts. Moreover, he is not an ally with any cat, just inclined towards the discounts.
Each side is fighting this war with their own weapons and armors. First of these weapons is the mode of payment. While offline has the tried and tested modes of payment of cash or cards, online has the preferred mode of payment as the virtual wallet. Each of these payment options has some advantages over the other and therefore, each side is also utilizing each other's weapons to neutralize the power of each other. While online has always used card payment, offline has started keeping handy the virtual wallet payment option.
But the course of this war is changing with the commissioning of war spies. The offline is going online and vice versa and in this way, spies are being deployed on each side.
It is said, someone is always benefited from anything that happens anywhere in the world and here also, there is someone who is the beneficiary of this ongoing war. You must have read the famous childhood story of the fight between two cats and a monkey. While two cats kept on fighting on a piece of cake, it was the monkey who took advantage and enjoyed to the fullest.
Due to the fear of losing customers, offline panicked and started giving more discounts than it used to offer and, in turn, reduced its profitability. The only entity which is getting benefit out of this is the customer. You are smart enough to figure out who are the cats here and who is the monkey.
Many experts say that the ability of online to offer alluring discounts will end soon and by that time major offline will be present online but most online will not be present offline and those which will be present, to a minuscule level.
But the deciding factor in this war is the power of followers each side has. The followers are the customers which are loyal to the spaces.
The second group of customers is strengthening because the majority of urbanized generation Y and Z and a part of urban generation X are following online. But semi-urbanized and rural generation X, Y and Z which forms the majority of the world population still rely on offline.
