Brick-and-Mortar Still Outselling Digital

According to a poll of more than 250 senior retail executives conducted by Australia’s Monash University (Sydney) physical stores still deliver the vast majority of retail sales and revenues internationally. The survey found that despite the advent of digital platforms, brick-and-mortar stores are currently responsible for 68 percent of retail sales, as opposed to the Internet’s 16 percent. Social media is generating just 2 percent of revenues, according to the report.

Retailers are poised for change, however. More than 60 percent those polled said online, mobile and social channels are currently “more important than in 2013.” More than half of the survey respondents said that digital communication and peer recommendations are the primary influencers in consumers’ retail decision-making. Fifty-seven percent claimed that the age of digital interaction has placed their brands “more in the spotlight.”