Where did you buy your phone? Physical store or e-commerce platform, the two are very different

introduction

Looking at the emerging fields in the Chinese market in recent years, they are all closely related to the development of my country's scientific and technological progress. For example, the rise of e-commerce platforms and the birth of various apps on smartphones have greatly satisfied people's food, clothing, housing, transportation and entertainment life. The emergence of these convenient methods relies on the upgrading of smartphones.

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If we want to trace the evolution of smartphones, we can trace it back to the era of large mobile phones. The level of technological development in the past was far less than it is today. If people wanted to get in touch with the outside world and communicate, they had to rely on mobile phones. At that time, mobile phones were still large and expensive, and they were also difficult to carry around.

Later, with the continuous advancement of technology, mobile phones also began to be slowly updated. When the phone was first born, it only had the function of making calls, but now, smartphones can cover almost every aspect of people's lives. In addition, people are now becoming more and more dependent on smartphones.

According to relevant data, the sales volume of mobile phones in my country in 2020 was about 300 million units, and people are changing their phones more and more frequently. In 2020 alone, almost a quarter of people upgraded their phones. Moreover, smartphone brands are launching new models every year, which means that people are using their phones for shorter and shorter periods of time.

When seeing this data, some people will say that if the market and consumer demand for smartphones are so huge, then the profitability of mobile phone stores must be very good, but this is not the case. When the newly born mobile phones officially entered the market, the main channel for people to buy smartphones was mobile phone hypermarkets. At that time, mobile phone stores used various means to attract consumers. In addition, the brands and types in mobile phone stores were very diverse, allowing customers to choose.

However, with the continuous changes of the times, the once very popular mobile phone market industry is in a state of continuous decline, and even many people are forced to withdraw from this market. The reason for this situation in the mobile phone market is mainly due to the sudden rise of the e-commerce industry.

The rise of the e-commerce industry has saved the time of communication between middlemen and buyers, and reduced a lot of operating costs because dealers are not needed. These combined factors have led to lower prices for mobile phones sold by the e-commerce industry. Mobile phone stores need to bear rent, material and operating costs, etc., so the prices of mobile phones will be higher.

The price fluctuations made people willing to buy mobile phones on e-commerce platforms, and the number of people choosing to go to mobile phone stores decreased, and profits naturally decreased. Slowly, this industry began to decline. But in fact, the business model of mobile phone stores is very helpful in attracting and retaining customers. Generally speaking, if the scale and number of offline mobile phone stores reach a peak, the brand of this mobile phone will naturally be remembered by consumers.

Especially in the e-commerce industry, before this sales model emerged, many big-brand mobile phones would choose to enter physical sales channels such as mobile phone stores. On the one hand, it could expand brand awareness, and on the other hand, it could drive sales growth. Moreover, this sales model is very popular among consumers.

However, after the emergence of new sales models such as e-commerce platforms, many platforms have offered benefits or free returns and exchanges in order to retain and attract new customers, which has attracted a group of young consumers. Under this new sales model, the original advantages of mobile phone stores cannot be reflected.

In addition, with the development of online information, when people choose mobile phones, they will search for relevant performance of mobile phones through various platforms, and then choose the mobile phone brand that suits them after a series of comparisons. This mobile phone consumption model prompts people to choose on more platforms, thus making consumers flow to the consumption model such as e-commerce platforms.

Conclusion

In fact, the rise of e-commerce platforms has affected not only the mobile phone market, but also many well-known companies that have been forced to withdraw from the market or even go bankrupt because they failed to catch up with the development of e-commerce platforms. The continuous development of the online economy is also slowly squeezing the living space of the offline real economy. Whether the two can achieve a balance will be a question worth discussing in the future.