THE proliferation of e-commerce companies such as Qoo10, Lazada, Carousell and Redmart in Singapore has seen an emerging but alarming trend - the desertion of retail spaces. While Singapore is far from the retail apocalypse facing brick-and-mortar retailers such as Toys "R" Us in the United States, the stars are aligning in that ominous direction for retailers who fail to arm themselves ahead of the digital revolution.

For many retailers, the solution is simple: go digital. With the cost of setting up a website relatively low compared to rental cost, many retailers have gone down a slippery slope - investing in e-commerce and then realising that the world of e-commerce is highly competitive with low margins.

Consider the number of e-commerce-only retailers that go unnoticed because they exist on the second page of results from a search. With little differentiation across e-commerce retailers, not only do they have to incur logistical infrastructural costs but for online visibility, they have to invest heavily on marketing themselves through search engine optimisation.