The High Street as we know it today is fast disappearing and their is little sign that this decline will be reversed. Covid has shown up the frailty of the High Street model, as many shoppers have disappeared from the streets. Businesses have closed or been forced to change its business model.

Now almost everyone will shop online and are choosing to browse the Internet to make their purchasing decisions. With the giants of Amazon and Ebay making giant strides in this area they are set to be joined by Facebook and Google who are already in this lucrative world of home shopping but set to make a major step change to their own business model. Currently the business model relies mainly on the fact that they want other businesses to use their shopping platforms and be the place to interact with their search for a product or service supplier online. They each have their own offering of stores that the customer can be directed to and they get to boost their own advertising revenue gained from the stores through paid advertising.

But this business model means that the likes of Amazon and Ebay can be found on Google searches and have pages on Facebook which relies is the main conduits used for online ad placements. Now Facebook and Google seek to break this reliance by being able to offer their own online stores using their members as agents of the platforms and offering thousands of products, just like Amazon does currently but without the need for large distribution centres to be built.  So pretty soon there will be many more online stores available on these two platforms all vying for the same business and they will have a new revenue opportunity on a global scale.

You only have to look at the rapid demise of Blockbuster and the equally rise of Netflix to see how technology can catch businesses sleeping and be eaten up by new and agile companies or even existing companies that broaden their product and or service offering to the same customer base.

So what does this mean for the individual smaller and medium sized business and even to larger business today who previously held the lion share of their market and what do they need to be aware of so as not to be caught napping.