Fashion Terms — the Apparel Search fashion terminology directory
Brick and mortar clothing stores are physical stores — buildings of brick and mortar that a shopper can walk into, browse in, and buy from in person. The term came into common use as its opposite appeared: online shopping. This page explains brick and mortar fashion retailing and how fashion consumers use both physical stores and online destinations.
Brick and Mortar Clothing Stores by Apparel Search - Terms of Interest to the Fashion Industry
Fashion Terms Fashion Terms Directory Fashion Terms by Category Clothing Stores Apparel Retailer Shopping
Fashion retailing in the modern world
consists of two primary classifications
of clothing stores. Today's retail
environment consists of online clothing
retailers and brick and mortar clothing
stores. In this area of the
Apparel Search fashion terms section, we
will discuss the brick and mortar
clothing stores.
According to Wikipedia,
“brick-and-mortar” (B&M) refers to a
company that possesses a building or
store for operations. The name is a
metonym derived from the traditional
building materials associated with
physical buildings—bricks and mortar–in
contrast with
online stores, which have no
physical presence.
In the jargon of ecommerce, brick-and-mortar businesses are companies that have a physical presence—a physical store—and offer face-to-face consumer experiences. This term is usually used to contrast with a transitory business or an Internet-only presence, such as an online shop. An example would be the movie-rental shop Blockbuster Video, which has physical stores and is in competition with the newer online rental services offered by Netflix. In this sense, the term is also a retronym in that all stores had a physical presence before the advent of the Internet, making such a term unnecessary. A comparable term in the United Kingdom is "High Street" shops, although the phrase "brick(s)-and-mortar business" is also used.
Other definitions include Investopedia’s reference that a brick-and-mortar business is a traditional "street-side" business that deals with its customers face-to-face in an office or a store that the business owns or rents. Web-based businesses usually have lower costs and greater flexibility than brick-and-mortar operations. The local grocery store and corner bank are examples of brick-and-mortar companies. About.com, defines brick-and-mortar businesses as retail shops that are located in a building as opposed to an online shopping destination, door-to-door sales, kiosk, or other similar site not housed within a structure. According to Macmillan Dictionary, a brick-and-mortar business is a traditional business that does not operate on the Internet. It also offers the term “click-and-mortar,” which is used to describe a business that operates in traditional ways and by using the Internet
Learn more about clothing stores in our retail section.
Written by Regina Cooper for Apparel Search November, 20010
Fashion consumers are interested in both brick and mortar and online shopping destinations.
Fashion
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Clothing is the retail category where the physical store's advantages are hardest to copy. Fit can be judged in a fitting room in minutes, fabric can be felt, color can be seen in real light, and a purchase can be worn the same day — no shipping window, no return label. Stores also do discovery work that websites struggle with: a shopper who came in for trousers leaves with the belt she saw beside them. Those strengths are why the obituaries written for brick and mortar during the first e-commerce wave proved premature, and why most large fashion retailers now run both channels as one business, with the store doubling as a showroom, a pickup point and a returns desk for online orders.
The costs are equally real — rent, staffing and stocking many sizes of everything — and they shape the vocabulary of this directory's retail terms. The bridge collections and other price classifications defined here are, in part, systems for deciding which physical stores carry which lines; the Black Friday and back to school entries describe the seasonal surges that physical stores are staffed and stocked around. A reader comparing channels for a clothing business will find the apparel retailer resources linked from this page a useful next step.
A physical store location — a real building with stock, staff and fitting rooms that customers visit in person — as distinct from an online store. Clothing stores in the retail section of Apparel Search are listed examples.
Because the contrast only became necessary when e-commerce gave shoppers a second kind of store. “Brick and mortar” names the traditional kind, and fashion retailing discussions use it when comparing the two channels.
Yes. As this page concludes, fashion consumers are interested in both brick and mortar and online shopping destinations — stores offer fit, fabric and immediacy, while online offers range and convenience.