Johannesburg – Digital sales are slowly eroding away jobs for sales staff, research showed.
According to research by Adzuna, a search engine for job sites, there were lower advertised vacancies for sales jobs in March, compared to the previous year.
Among the reasons for this is growing digital sales. “[It] requires less manpower or relationship building, taking a good deal of the work that sales staff do,” according to Adzuna.
There is also less demand to drive sales through personal, face to face interactions with clients.
“When it comes to using social media and other online means to make income and to showcase a business’s products, doing it online is often very effective, especially for generating leads.”
The data also showed that advertised salaries for sales staff is down at least 10%, for the month. Contrarily salaries for IT and finance jobs grew between 20% and 30% between September 2016 and March 2017.
Adzuna added that in reality salespeople may be earning more than the advertised figures, through commission and bonuses. “One assumption is that firms are paying more on performance in an effort to tighten their belts in a tough economic climate.”
READ: Groceries keep stores alive in digital age – research
Research by Nielsen recently revealed that there may still be room for bricks and mortar stores in the digital age. The research showed that consumers made online purchases for travel, event tickets, music, books and clothing. However they prefer to purchase groceries in-store.
The research showed that being in-store influences purchase decisions for groceries the most.