Analysis on the Impact of Shopping Online on the Real Economy

Abstract

Shopping online is a new convenient shopping way. Shopping apps like amazon, farfetch, and Taobao attract more and more consumers. The main reasons for consumers choosing online-shopping are as follows: Consumers have more choices of products. In addition, they can shop at any time and any place and they can save time and money. As more and more consumers use this new way, there are some non-negligible consequences on the real economy. The purpose of this paper is to figure out the influences on the real economy. There are four negative influences. Firstly, the lower cost of online stores will increase the bankruptcy of small and medium-sized enterprises. Secondly, online stores have lower demands of entity stores, which will affect the real estate industry. Thirdly, the wastage rate of staff in online stores is high. Fourthly, because of the lower cost of online stores, they can lower the price of the products. However, it is difficult to make sure that all prices are above price floor. In this situation, vicious competition may appear in the market. Besides, there is one positive influence that the online store has less restriction of area, so shopping online relieves the pressure on the market to stock up in some situations.