Retailers and online sales and bulldust
I was tempted to title this post with a more direct thought about the retailers, but a reference to pork pies might have got some attention from the forces of ultra-evil (ie lawyers).
Every reader in Australia will be aware of the bleats from various very rich retailers about how they are being beaten up by on-line sales and to quote from Afferbeck Lauder "Aorta do something about it." The main problem according to the gooses of the retail industry is that on-line sales from overseas don't pay GST.
It has been proven, by the resultant debate, that GST is not the issue for most people, it is the huge prices charged by retailers in Australian physical shops.
By chance I needed to buy a new running watch since the strap on my current one broke and is now held together by a cable tie (which while effective is not elegant). What follows starts with that specific experience and then makes a couple of general points.
In the past when I have looked for watches of my preferred brand (Timex Ironman) the best I have been able to do in Australia was $A180.00. However I was aware of a shop - Campmor - in the US which could supply one for about $US 40 plus $US10 postage. I knew they only delivered to US or Canadian addresses so I made an arrangement with a kind friend in the US for her to ship it on to me (recognising this would add another $US10, but we're still well below $A180). Progressing through the Campmor system it turned out one also had to have a US billing address for your credit card. Expletives, many of them, deleted, as was my intended purchase.
Back to plan B, which is to check for online sellers in Australia. To my surprise I find what I need through one of the consolidating sites: they list goods from a company called Redbird, based in Norwood. (Possibly they should be Redlegs with an address like that?) They offered a flavour of the watch I wanted for $A65 plus $A3 postage. Allowing for the arbitrage likely to be charged on a $US transaction by Westpac (not to mention the unpriced value of the effort by my friend in the US) this is clearly going to be no more expensive than the US order.
So I now have a new watch on the way (in fact I got an email from Redbird saying it had been shipped within an hour of placing the order). The small parcel turned up on 13 January: well within the 6 day deadline! The invoice from Redbird mentioned that the price included $6.18 GST, so that clearly disposes of the claims by the aforementioned gooses of the Retail industry. For them to make such easily disproved claims makes one wonder what the selection criteria are for their positions. An ability to appear vacuous on TV seems to be the only visible thing they are good at! Perhaps they have skills which they keep private (no examples offered: see previous reference to the forces of ultra-evil).
I would note that if I went to a retail shop and spent 30 minutes trying things out and getting advice from a salesperson I would feel obliged to buy from them - unless I clearly spelt out before I started that I was doing research and would need to compare prices before buying. However, when all I would would do is point at the object and grunt "that one please", paying $A120 for the privilege is a bit tough.
Moving right along, to the general points, it has been suggested to me that in many parts of the retail sphere getting 30 minutes of advice and assistance is unheard of these days. The assistants tend to be like Ms Brahms (surely that is rhyming slang, but probably not for 'Brahms and Lizst' since I never saw her drinking) in "Are you being served". Despite the reference to her biggest sale in the linked article, I cannot remember seeing her ever talk to a customer.
It is also the case that the current trend to shopping malls, with no natural light and masses of identical stores, has made shopping an unpleasant experience. It would be more unpleasant if the shops were crowded, but that isn't the case (hence the bleats). The malls are particularly unpleasant when they contains a store where the attendants play the latest tuneless and talentless grunge (at least "When Weasels ripped my flesh" was done deliberately by very competent musicians as a tuneless melange) at about 400dB. On thinking about it, all the enjoyable shopping experiences we have had recently have all been out of Malls: either local shopping centres or rural businesses.
One could add on the cost of parking, but in many cases round here that isn't an issue as (outside the City Centre) one can usually park at no cost for < 3 hours. One could also add on the difficulty of physically traipsing around a set of shops to get comparative prices as opposed to sitting at home and in the space of 10 minutes getting several prices for exactly the same item.
So, in our book, the big Australian retailers have three major strikes against them:
Every reader in Australia will be aware of the bleats from various very rich retailers about how they are being beaten up by on-line sales and to quote from Afferbeck Lauder "Aorta do something about it." The main problem according to the gooses of the retail industry is that on-line sales from overseas don't pay GST.
It has been proven, by the resultant debate, that GST is not the issue for most people, it is the huge prices charged by retailers in Australian physical shops.
By chance I needed to buy a new running watch since the strap on my current one broke and is now held together by a cable tie (which while effective is not elegant). What follows starts with that specific experience and then makes a couple of general points.
In the past when I have looked for watches of my preferred brand (Timex Ironman) the best I have been able to do in Australia was $A180.00. However I was aware of a shop - Campmor - in the US which could supply one for about $US 40 plus $US10 postage. I knew they only delivered to US or Canadian addresses so I made an arrangement with a kind friend in the US for her to ship it on to me (recognising this would add another $US10, but we're still well below $A180). Progressing through the Campmor system it turned out one also had to have a US billing address for your credit card. Expletives, many of them, deleted, as was my intended purchase.
Back to plan B, which is to check for online sellers in Australia. To my surprise I find what I need through one of the consolidating sites: they list goods from a company called Redbird, based in Norwood. (Possibly they should be Redlegs with an address like that?) They offered a flavour of the watch I wanted for $A65 plus $A3 postage. Allowing for the arbitrage likely to be charged on a $US transaction by Westpac (not to mention the unpriced value of the effort by my friend in the US) this is clearly going to be no more expensive than the US order.
So I now have a new watch on the way (in fact I got an email from Redbird saying it had been shipped within an hour of placing the order). The small parcel turned up on 13 January: well within the 6 day deadline! The invoice from Redbird mentioned that the price included $6.18 GST, so that clearly disposes of the claims by the aforementioned gooses of the Retail industry. For them to make such easily disproved claims makes one wonder what the selection criteria are for their positions. An ability to appear vacuous on TV seems to be the only visible thing they are good at! Perhaps they have skills which they keep private (no examples offered: see previous reference to the forces of ultra-evil).
I would note that if I went to a retail shop and spent 30 minutes trying things out and getting advice from a salesperson I would feel obliged to buy from them - unless I clearly spelt out before I started that I was doing research and would need to compare prices before buying. However, when all I would would do is point at the object and grunt "that one please", paying $A120 for the privilege is a bit tough.
Moving right along, to the general points, it has been suggested to me that in many parts of the retail sphere getting 30 minutes of advice and assistance is unheard of these days. The assistants tend to be like Ms Brahms (surely that is rhyming slang, but probably not for 'Brahms and Lizst' since I never saw her drinking) in "Are you being served". Despite the reference to her biggest sale in the linked article, I cannot remember seeing her ever talk to a customer.
It is also the case that the current trend to shopping malls, with no natural light and masses of identical stores, has made shopping an unpleasant experience. It would be more unpleasant if the shops were crowded, but that isn't the case (hence the bleats). The malls are particularly unpleasant when they contains a store where the attendants play the latest tuneless and talentless grunge (at least "When Weasels ripped my flesh" was done deliberately by very competent musicians as a tuneless melange) at about 400dB. On thinking about it, all the enjoyable shopping experiences we have had recently have all been out of Malls: either local shopping centres or rural businesses.
One could add on the cost of parking, but in many cases round here that isn't an issue as (outside the City Centre) one can usually park at no cost for < 3 hours. One could also add on the difficulty of physically traipsing around a set of shops to get comparative prices as opposed to sitting at home and in the space of 10 minutes getting several prices for exactly the same item.
So, in our book, the big Australian retailers have three major strikes against them:
- Their prices are ridiculously high;
- They do not provide value added services; and
- The environment they have created is foul.
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