The webshops are taking over

Trying climbing shoes in shops and then searching the web to find the lowest price is getting more popular, killing your local store. Now, you can scan the barcode of the chosen shoe with your smartphone and order it to the lowest price automatically as you are sitting in your local shop. Smaller climbing shops are closing down and the webshops are taking over in a high speed. Sure this is just a logical development as the webshops can sell at lower prices, the distribution costs are getting lower and you can do all the reviewing at the internet. In the future, the producers will have to substitute the local shops so they can market their products and work as show rooms when it comes to trying sizes of shoes and clothes. Otherwise, it will mainly only in the climbing gyms you will be able to try climbing products. It will also be much harder to introduce new products on the market as it will be hard for the small local shops to take the marketing costs as the consumer will quickly move to the web as soon as the products get famous. In Sweden an importer has actually started to sell some new products via the webshop only. This means they have cut one middle man and now selling at lower prices compared to the global webshops who are buying at retail prices. How far has the development come at your local market?