What are the impacts on offline retails after the increasing popularity for online shopping ?

In the near future offline retailers will struggle to survive due to various factors. Online traders are fortunate enough to avoid many kinds of taxes imposed on the products due to some special condition.

Taking the case of VAT, which online traders not supposed to pay at least some states in India. The online traders are not having any physical shops or outlet most of the time and they transport the goods to the consumers through courier services and they easily escape from the tax process.

Online traders purchase products in such a huge quantity that they are able to provide abnormal discounts to the customers. This is the situation where consumers get benefit and it is encouraged.

There should have some criteria where both the interests of the offline and online traders should protected.

As it is said, every coin has two sides. There are conflicts between online and offline retailers. But, whether online retailers hurting offline retailers is a big debate. Big Billion Day Sale by FlipKart set new records in nine retailing. Abnormally high discounts made offline stores protest against such practices.
A supplier or manufacturer needs to maintain balance between the supplies to online and offline retailers. A boom in online supply chain disrupts the equilibrium of supply to retail outlets. Offline retailers cannot match the kind of discounts offered by their online counterparts because of the overheads they need to handle. This goes against healthy competition.
There have been many complaints of defective products from e-retailers which tarnishes the brand image, which in turn can go against the offline stores as well. Offline retailers have to pay various taxes like VAT while there is no uniformity in the tax structure for online firms.
Customers find online retailing very comfortable and easy than offline because of wider options to choose from.

1. Partnerships: While on the one hand small retailers are feeling the irritated from online discounting, many are also benefiting by partnering with online marketplaces as logistics and distribution partners and re-sellers, thereby benefiting from the massive investments the large online players make in Marketing and Sales.

2. Pricing Pressure: Online shopping in India, with its focus on massive discounting has created a perception of the true value of a product in the minds of customers. With leading e-commerce companies often offering merchandise at a price well below landing costs for offline retailers, in many categories, conventional retailers, especially in the larger cities find themselves priced out of the market.

3. Increased walk ins in shops & reduced sales: With massive advertising of products and their prices, online retail has actually led to an increase in the number of walk ins at offline retail stores, however not just conversion rates, but even absolute sales have declined as customers check products out at offline stores before going on to make purchase online.

4. Closure of Small Retailers: In many categories, Books and mobile phones for example. Many small retailers are closing down businesses since they're unable to match prices being offered by online retailers for the same models.