Magazines Archives - 2008 January

Online shopping challenge the role of retail staff
Story 13

WITH the unprecedented growth in online shopping, traditional roles of retail staff are being challenged as newer roles such as Web marketers and IT come into play.

According to a survey released by Skillsmart Retail Limited, a London-based retail advisory association, the convergence of online and offline retailing is “actively changing and enriching roles of many working in the sector”.

Author of the report and research manager at Skillsmart Retail, Ian Wheeler, stated that while online retailing “is far from taking over from the high street”, he maintained that “the new technology of the Internet has simply presented retailers and society generally with complex new choices”.

The report traced the evolution of online retailing since its induction over a decade earlier, pointing out the changes in perceptions of shoppers, the gradual development and potential impact through skills required by staff to enhance their online shopping “environments”. Wheeler also noted the
impact that such skill requirements and changes will have on retailers, on and offline. “Roles at all levels are seeing a change.

This includes in-store sales assistants. Not only will they need to have knowledge of what’s in their own stores and store-based systems, they’ll also have to understand online offers as well,” Wheeler noted.