Shopping online was an initial alluring promise that came with the heady dotcom rush into our lives 10 years ago. No more trips to the shopping mall, dealing with salespeople and the inevitable crowds. Oh no sir; you, a modem connection and your PC were all you were ever going to need.
As the new millennium rolled over ‘visionary' IT pundits saw shops as heading to the same knackers yard as gas lighting, vinyl albums and 286/386/486 PCs.
Now that kind of tantalising vision must have had retailers jumping for joy in 2000. No retail premises, no retail staff - just a big warehouse, an efficient pick and pack system and a fleet of courier vans - or a contract with a courier company.
For retailers this equation seemed near perfection, with fewer staff and vastly reduced rentals being the key attractions. Running a perky website with just one warehouse for your products is a lot cheaper than renting a number of stores scattered through expensive-to-rent shopping malls.
However, like some great IT visions as to how our lives would be changed by computers, there was a problem; those darn customers.
Despite the easy allure of never leaving home to shop, it seems people like shopping at stores. Take a trip to the mall, tyre-kick in a few clothes shops, check-out the latest DVD releases, bag a coffee and then wrap it up with a trip to the supermarket. And let’s not forget the option of dropping the kids off to watch a movie at the mall to give you quality shopping time.
The ‘retail shopping is a sunset industry' pundits should have considered the cinema, whose demise was hotly predicted after TV burst into living rooms in the early ‘60s. Surely people wouldn’t bother to leave home to watch a movie, when such entertainment was beamed straight to their living room?
Cinema survived and continues to thrive, even with the current arrival of high-definition 52inch TVs and wall-mounted projectors. The reason it’s still going strong is that going to the movies is a thought-provoking (depending on the movie), relatively inexpensive and enjoyable night out.
Where the web has changed our retail habits in the past 10 years is that people can shop smarter. Looking for a new washing machine? You don’t have to go from store to store to compare prices you just do that online, find the best price and then go to the store and buy it.
When buying a big-ticket item it can be advantageous dealing with a salesperson in a shop. You could get the price even lower with some judicious bargaining. Also, if there are technical problems after the purchase, it’s a lot easier to get them sorted if you are back in the store eyeballing a staff member when raising your complaint. That’s as opposed to attempting to secure redress over the phone (where you have to wonder just what city or country the call centre is located in) or by email.
At present online sales in the US chime in at three percent of total retail sales. For the reasons listed above, along with the kicker of courier charges adding to the retail cost of items ordered online, bricks and mortar still rule and always will.
