E-commerce VS physical stores: The difference in quality revealed, which one will make money when doing business?

Are physical stores the “graveyard of dreams”?E-commerceBut it has become an elevator for the poor to turn their lives around!

Have you ever wondered why physical stores on the street are closing one after another, while there are always people making fortunes quietly on the Internet?

Let’s talk about the difference between e-commerce and physical stores.

Don't underestimate this question. If you understand it, it may directly determine your fate in the next ten years.

Physical stores: Looks good, but is actually like stepping on a landmine

Don't be fooled by the luxurious decoration and the well-dressed store clerks.

Many owners of physical stores appear respectable on the surface, but they are actually losing their hair due to worry behind the scenes.

Why?

Because to open a physical store, you have to empty your wallet first.

To sum it up in one sentence: pay the capital before making any money.

It costs hundreds of thousands or even millions of yuan at a time, the rent takes half a year, and the decoration costs hundreds of thousands of yuan.

This was before we purchased any goods or hired any people.

Do you still dare to say that this is a business that ordinary people can afford?

1. The startup capital is huge and overwhelming

Is there anyone around you who has used his or her parents’ life savings to open a small shop?

As a result, he sold the business in less than half a year, leaving him with nothing but his underwear.

This is not accidental, it is the norm.

It’s like buying lottery tickets. Among a thousand people, only one of them wins. It’s already a good bet that the physical store can get a payback period of one or two years.

Not to mention "emergencies" such as the epidemic, landlords raising rents, and vicious competition among peers.

2. SKUs are messy and inventory is piled up

The daily life of a physical store owner:VibratoLearning how to clear inventory while staring at the warehouse in a daze.

As the number of SKUs increases, inventory pressure will grow like a snowball.

If it can’t be sold today, it will become an “old jar” stored in the bottom of the box tomorrow.

Discounts, clearance sales, sales at a loss…are you familiar with these terms?

3. Opening a shop is like being in prison, and the boss is like being trapped in a cage

Do you think opening a shop is free?

Do not be silly.

I stay open for 12 hours every day and stay in the store.

Not to mention traveling, you even have to endure getting sick.

If you're not here, the store will close.

How can this be called doing business? It is simply being “doed by business”.

4. Limited operating radius, growth hits ceiling

If you open a store in a better location, the rent will be shockingly expensive.

It is located in a cheap place with few people.

Even if you are doing well and want to open a branch, I'm sorry, you have no funds, no connections, and no manpower.

Expansion is like playing a game and getting stuck at the boss level.

E-commerce: Grassroots hope of counterattack does not require desperately spending money

What’s so great about e-commerce?

It means “light”, easy to start, low cost and light operation.

No need for a storefront, no need for inventory, and no need for high manpower.

Just like driving on the highway, you might just rush forward once you step on the accelerator.

1. Start with no supply, invest when you see a hit

E-commerce companies can put products on shelves first and purchase later.

If sales are good, then stock up, the risk is pitifully small.

It's like playing a game in "trial and error mode", where the cost of failure is almost zero.

Who doesn't like this kind of gameplay?

2. Focus on hot-selling products, one SKU stands tall

Unlike physical stores that have SKUs all over the place, e-commerce stores pursue hot-selling products.

One hot-selling product is equivalent to dozens of your offline SKUs.

If you can control the supply chain and grab the traffic, you can turn things around overnight.

3. The boss does not need to guard the store, the backend can operate easily

E-commerce bosses are more like "operators".

Customer service handles orders, the backend automatically ships, and the inventory system manages...

Even if people are not in the store, money still comes in.

This is called the freedom to make money, isn't it?

4. Product expansion means growth, spaceunlimitedL

The online market has no geographical restrictions. You can sell across the country and around the world. It just depends on whether you can take it on.

When a product is successful and then continues to expand into other categories, it is called "explosive" growth.

If you want to expand, just open more stores and more platforms, and you will get more and more comfortable with traffic.

The advantages of physical stores are not all bad

Of course, we are not speaking ill of physical stores.

If you are really a superb operations expert and can implement the single-store model, the physical store will be a "gold mine".

1. Open up the single store model and copy it to open unlimited stores

If you create a profitable store model, you have the "chain code".

Didn’t Heytea and Mixue Bingcheng rely on one model to replicate hundreds or thousands of stores?

Once an offline brand is formed, it becomes a model of brand effect + stable profits.

2. A single store can operate for a long period of time, which is less troublesome in the later stage

A mature store can easily operate for 5 or 10 years.

Unlike e-commerce, the SKU life cycle is short and products must be replaced once the benefits of hot products are over.

As long as there are no major problems with the physical store in the later stages, you can “make money without doing anything.”

But the prerequisite is: you can survive the early hell mode.

Don’t ignore the shortcomings of e-commerce

Don’t think that e-commerce is a “guaranteed profit”.

Homogeneous competition is too fierce. If you become popular today, there will be 100 people copying you on Douyin tomorrow.

Selecting a hit product is a matter of luck; if you fail to select the product, all your efforts will be in vain.

Moreover, once the traffic fluctuates, inventory will become even more difficult to clear, especially for cross-border e-commerce, where the return rate is high and logistics is slow, which eats up all the profits.

Don’t forget that e-commerce may look light, but it is actually very competitive.

can not do wellInternet marketingoperations,drainageThe quantity and investment are both huge losses.

The quality and competition differences between e-commerce and physical stores

There is a wide variety of products on e-commerce platforms, but this has also led to intensified homogeneous competition.

Many merchants sell similar products, price wars become the norm, and profit margins are compressed.

In addition, it is difficult for consumers to fully understand product quality through pictures and text, which easily leads to return and exchange issues, increasing operating costs.

The quality advantage of physical stores

Physical stores provide opportunities for physical display and trial, so consumers can directly experience the quality and performance of the products and enhance their purchasing confidence.

This face-to-face interaction helps build customer trust and improves customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Private domain traffic advantages of physical stores

Physical stores can establish a stable customer base and generate private domain traffic through offline activities and membership systems.

This approach helps to increase customer repurchase rate and brand loyalty. For example, Luckin Coffee guides customers to join the community through stores, achieving efficient private domain operations.

E-commerce’s private traffic challenges

Customers on e-commerce platforms are highly mobile, making it difficult to establish stable private domain traffic.drainage, but the effect is not as direct as the physical store.

Final choice: Is it more reliable for ordinary people to start a business or e-commerce?

If you ask me, which one should an ordinary person choose if he wants to start a business?

I would say without hesitation: e-commerce.

Why?

Because it is more in line with the "trial and error logic".

Low cost, quick start-up, able to transform at any time, and easy to get feedback.

Unlike physical stores, one wrong step will result in a total loss.

Even if failure occurs, the cost of failure for e-commerce is much lower and one can start over quickly.

This is simply a life-saving straw for ordinary people with limited resources and poor risk resistance.

To sum up: Your choices determine the trajectory of your life

Let’s review:

• Physical stores have high startup costs, slow returns, and heavy operations, making them suitable for experts to copy the profit model.

• E-commerce is easy to start up, has low risks, and grows quickly, making it suitable for ordinary people to take small steps and make repeated mistakes.

• Both have their advantages, but if you don’t have much money, experience, or connections, e-commerce is a more reasonable starting point.

In this era, there is no shortage of opportunities, but what is lacking is the vision to see the trends clearly.

Don’t rush into physical stores and “become a boss”; that is the game of the previous generation.

If you want to make a comeback in a new track, what you need is not courage, but choosing the right track + the right method.

Try e-commerce, and maybe you will find that you can make money.

The door to e-commerce is quietly opening for every ordinary person.