What Challenger provides to comsumers is easy access to their products which the shops in Sim Lim can't do. Imagine taking a 1-2 hour journey to and fro to purchase a SSD/HDD. Is the money saved worth the time? I doubt so.
Now with e-commerce, we are talking about free shipping to your home! It is a totally different story now.
Anyway i was vested in Challenger for a few years back till last year so i do know that Challenger has a very competent management team that manage the business well.
Maybe they will come up with something new to fend off the e-commerce threat?
yes, we shall see
e-commerce has been around for so long already
free shipping is just a gimmick, basically amazon is just lowering margins for more volume
in the short term the sales may look great, but in long run nothing fundamentally has changed
I guess that Challenger's higher margin items may be impacted, as buying direct from Amazon can make a significant saving. In the past, Amazon charge very high shipping rate, which makes it unattractive to purchase from them. For low cost item, the shipping cost may equal to the item price.
Now, a few people can group together and place an order above $125. then, they will get a good deal. I believe local retailers will be hit by this move.
Saw some advertisement on SMRT taxi, that Taobao also making its way to Singapore. Great for the shoppers!
the trend is very prevalent. nowadays for savings we will go qoo10, amazon or taobao. although i only go challenger for convenience
if there is an impact we will see in the results.
yes these gimmick have been around for long, but for the first time, the costs might just be worth it. it will not kill challenger, but that doesn't mean it will have an easy time.
Challenger will definitely survive. This is because we have an age group of consumers who will still prefer to purchase electronic goods in stores than via the web for various reasons.
Secondly, there is a perception in consumers that buying from store is better than online (like getting repairs done etc) ad you can easily look through the array of products instead of the troublesome way of flipping thru webpages. The question is how much are people willing to pay a premium over online retailers for these services. This in turn will determine the profits and margins
i can see why they will survive because there are a lot of goods like tablets and laptops you will still want to touch and feel. above that, if a mechanical keyboard is 30-50 dollars cheaper that is such a good deal.
it will be a while that this culture starts taking over.
Challenger attracts those working adults who don't mind paying a premium for convenience. Female shoppers might prefer Challenger too as SLS has a very bad reputation. Their house brand, Valore, might bring pleasant surprises but I'm not banking on that.
I disappointed that I don't see Challenger selling face mask and air purifier.
Courts do.
Just now visited Best Denki. Their aircon/air purifier/fan section is having quite a good business.