There are several factors that seem to support the view that digital sales will soon outstrip traditional customer service and lead to neglecting face-to-face interaction. To begin with, making purchases online is easier than traveling to physical stores (Jimenez, Valdes, and Salinas, 2019). A suitable example of this is GameStop – a videogame retail company that experienced a persistent decline due to its focus on brick-and-store stores and slowness in adapting to the digital market (Bass et al., 2020). One more reason why the ascension of digital commerce may devaluate face-to-face interaction is the price advantage that digital sales can offer due to lesser operational costs (Jimenez, Valdes, and Salinas, 2019). Finally, online purchases are also less time-consuming (Jimenez, Valdes, and Salinas, 2019). Based on that, one could conclude that online sales are likely to dwarf the importance of face-to-face interactions.
However, this conclusion would be premature because there are also reasons for the persistent relevance of face-to-face interactions. Kingsnorth (2016), in particular, notes that it is too early to discount traditional face-to-face interactions and “the integration of digital and offline” remains the best approach (p. 168). First of all, personal interaction within the same physical space increases the level of trust between the parties present (Behrens and Kret, 2019). It means that, on a neurological level, people are predisposed to trust those with whom they have face-to-face contact as opposed to the impersonal online purchase. Vinoklio, a second-hand fashion company, tested this premise and established that face-to-face interactions, as opposed to online sales, lead to better customer retention (Stein, Spinler, and Vanthournout, 2020). Apart from that, even when the customers are inclined to purchase online due to better prices, they can steel search offline (Chiou, Chou, and Shen, 2017). This multichannel shopping occurs because personal interaction allows receiving better and more detailed feedback. With this in mind, online sales are unlikely to lead to complete neglect of personal interaction in the immediate future.
Reference List
Bass, A. E. et al. (2020). ‘GameStop’s next play: reconfiguring the value offering.’ The CASE Journal, 16(1), pp. 7-33.
Behrens, F. and Kret, M. E. (2019). ‘The interplay between face-to-face contact and feedback on cooperation during real-life interactions.’ Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 43, pp. 513–528.
Chiou, J. S., Chou, S. Y. and Shen, J. C. (2017). ‘Consumer choice of multichannel shopping: The effects of relationship investment and online store preference.’ Internet Research, 27(1), pp. 2-20.
Jimenez, D., Valdes, C and Salinas, M. (2019). Popularity comparison between e-commerce and traditional retail business. International Journal of Technology for Business, 1(1), pp. 10-16.
Kingsnorth, S. (2016). Digital marketing strategy: An integrated approach to online marketing. 2nd edn. London: Kogan Page.
Stein, N., Spinler, S., and Vanthournout, H. (2020). ‘Face-to-face communication as a tool to support second-hand fashion sales: A field experiment at Fashion Week in Berlin.’ Sustainability, 12(5), 1758.