An e-shop has lower running costs than a normal store because:

It doesn't have salespeople who require training in a thousand and two things (invoicing, sales tactics, information about new services/products, etc.) but mainly storekeepers who do the receiving, packing and shipping of the orders. Certainly, it is much easier and faster to train someone who will only deal with one task than someone who will do many more. Accordingly, and its replacement.

It has no shop rent costs, only warehouses. Yes, the rents, or even the purchase of a warehouse may be higher than a store in absolute numbers but here we have to factor two more factors into our equation. On the one hand, stores *also* need warehouses most of the time, and on the other hand, the cost per square meter is much lower than for a store from a warehouse.

Also, an online store gives you the possibility to buy whenever you want, without any waiting and at the moment you want. This practically means that you have your store open 24 hours a day and 7 days a week without having to pay either overtime or additional employees. After all, the e-shop is run by 2-3-5 web developers, but a normal store needs many times more people, especially when we are talking about chains.

Of course, online stores are not a one-way street. I just think that having smaller running costs gives you the possibility for bigger profits and also for a longer stay in the market as long as the balance is in the red..