Long before Sam Walton founded Wal-Mart Discount City in 1962, when someone wanted to make some sort of purchase, they needed the assistance of the local salesman. But ever since the rise of the name-brand packaging and mail-order catalogues, interpersonal communication with the salesman in the purchasing process has been on a decline. Along with the salesmen’s future, companies in the retail industry are becoming an endangered market.

Case in point, a few months ago, the electronics reseller, CompUSA, announced that they were shutting down 126 out of the 229 stores in the United States. Technological advances in the consumer market, including over-the-Internet transactions known as e-commerce, force retail companies, like CompUSA, to rethink their business plans in order to conform to the changing trends, even if that entails cutting half of its stores. The primary factor behind the closures is that more and more informed consumers are simply viewing the products in the store, then going home and making the less expensive purchase through online stores.

Retail competitors to CompUSA, including Best Buy and Circuit City, have been surviving due to higher volume of sales, which allow for the necessary cut in profit margin in order to compete with e-commerce websites. The reason these relatively new e-commerce companies, such as Amazon.com, NewEgg.com and Buy.com, are able to undercut retail prices is due to the fact that they lack the metaphorical “middle-man” and therefore can offer their customers near wholesale prices. In addition, Internet-based payment services such as PayPal and Google Checkout make the entire checkout process straightforward, simple and easy. While this “volume over profit margin” business model has proved successful to retailers such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy, the much more efficient, lower overhead model of e-commerce companies becomes the new paradigm in the retail industry.

However, as we leave the checkout lanes for the checkout page, we also lose a critical portion of the purchasing experience: the interpersonal communication between the consumer and sales staff. A change of tide in the consumer shopping habits suggests the end of human assistance and a move toward the self-assistance in the purchasing process.

By definition, e-commerce transactions are processed through websites on the Internet. This means that people have to use their personal computers to go through the purchasing process. No longer are people walking into stores and receiving assistance from the sales staff, but instead, they are navigating these virtual marketplaces with keyboard and mouse and reading online user reviews in front of their computer screens.

This phenomenon hints at the possible beginning of a human-less consumer generation that should be acknowledged and discussed by the consuming population. Even in some instances, if a customer does decide to walk into a store, they will be pleasantly surprised to find that the inevitable human contact in the checkout process has been replaced with these so-called “self-checkout” lanes. In theory the “self-checkout” system might be more efficient; in reality, however, there are too many customers who have no idea what they are doing to make it successful. In addition, some companies are trying to incorporate the Internet into their services; for example, groceries can now be purchased online via Amazon.com, Netgrocer.com or Safeway.com.

Other examples of traditional purchasing process losing the human interaction to the Internet includes: ordering from Domino’s Pizza over the Internet through their website versus calling in through the phone; ordering DVD’s from Netflix.com instead of walking into the local video store; and also downloading music online using services such as iTunes or eMusic versus browsing the local music store and asking for recommendation from the sales people.

While moving consumer services online for efficiency and lower costs is becoming mandatory, human interaction is lost as a consequence. However there is light in the not-too-distant future. The advancement of the Internet and video communication technology can bring back some of that human interaction, which lets me sleep easier at night knowing I can keep my job at CompUSA.

Daily Nexus columnist Jack Yi fears the day that people begin saying “lol” instead of actually laughing.

Long before Sam Walton founded Wal-Mart Discount City in 1962, when someone wanted to make some sort of purchase, they needed the assistance of the local salesman. But ever since the rise of the name-brand packaging and mail-order catalogues, interpersonal communication with the salesman in the purchasing process has been on a decline. Along with the salesmen’s future, companies in the retail industry are becoming an endangered market.

Case in point, a few months ago, the electronics reseller, CompUSA, announced that they were shutting down 126 out of the 229 stores in the United States. Technological advances in the consumer market, including over-the-Internet transactions known as e-commerce, force retail companies, like CompUSA, to rethink their business plans in order to conform to the changing trends, even if that entails cutting half of its stores. The primary factor behind the closures is that more and more informed consumers are simply viewing the products in the store, then going home and making the less expensive purchase through online stores.

Retail competitors to CompUSA, including Best Buy and Circuit City, have been surviving due to higher volume of sales, which allow for the necessary cut in profit margin in order to compete with e-commerce websites. The reason these relatively new e-commerce companies, such as Amazon.com, NewEgg.com and Buy.com, are able to undercut retail prices is due to the fact that they lack the metaphorical “middle-man” and therefore can offer their customers near wholesale prices. In addition, Internet-based payment services such as PayPal and Google Checkout make the entire checkout process straightforward, simple and easy. While this “volume over profit margin” business model has proved successful to retailers such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy, the much more efficient, lower overhead model of e-commerce companies becomes the new paradigm in the retail industry.

However, as we leave the checkout lanes for the checkout page, we also lose a critical portion of the purchasing experience: the interpersonal communication between the consumer and sales staff. A change of tide in the consumer shopping habits suggests the end of human assistance and a move toward the self-assistance in the purchasing process.

By definition, e-commerce transactions are processed through websites on the Internet. This means that people have to use their personal computers to go through the purchasing process. No longer are people walking into stores and receiving assistance from the sales staff, but instead, they are navigating these virtual marketplaces with keyboard and mouse and reading online user reviews in front of their computer screens.

This phenomenon hints at the possible beginning of a human-less consumer generation that should be acknowledged and discussed by the consuming population. Even in some instances, if a customer does decide to walk into a store, they will be pleasantly surprised to find that the inevitable human contact in the checkout process has been replaced with these so-called “self-checkout” lanes. In theory the “self-checkout” system might be more efficient; in reality, however, there are too many customers who have no idea what they are doing to make it successful. In addition, some companies are trying to incorporate the Internet into their services; for example, groceries can now be purchased online via Amazon.com, Netgrocer.com or Safeway.com.

Other examples of traditional purchasing process losing the human interaction to the Internet includes: ordering from Domino’s Pizza over the Internet through their website versus calling in through the phone; ordering DVD’s from Netflix.com instead of walking into the local video store; and also downloading music online using services such as iTunes or eMusic versus browsing the local music store and asking for recommendation from the sales people.

While moving consumer services online for efficiency and lower costs is becoming mandatory, human interaction is lost as a consequence. However there is light in the not-too-distant future. The advancement of the Internet and video communication technology can bring back some of that human interaction, which lets me sleep easier at night knowing I can keep my job at CompUSA.