Changes in Shopping...

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I very rarely go in to town to look for something these days other than perhaps picking up my groceries, etc. Certainly if I'm buying something like consumer electronics, software, books, etc I always find myself first looking online for the item, then reviews, then a best price and then a purchase, all completed online without a single look in a bricks and mortar shop. The process is incremental, and we all tend to do it. Nothing new there.

The thought only struck me the other day how little respect I have for high street shops and in store customer service. E.g. I cannot remember the last time I walked in to a shop and actually found staff being able to do more than I could do for myself. Usually when you ask staff do they have a particular item in stock, they just point you or bring you back to the location where you have just come from and spend a min or so scanning the area, precisely what you would have done yourself just moments earlier. Then tell you "sorry we don't have it, or I don't know, or we get a delivery next week perhaps check back then". It doesn't really matter where you live anymore because the Internet is like the biggest city in the world with so much choice and we're all at equal distance from it.

So from a philisophical perspective what does the current high street shop do for us that we cannot do ourselves. I know I cannot check local stock rooms and need staff to do that on my behalf but I'd say we'd be lucky if 1 out of every 10 times you send someone to check a stockroom they actually come back with the item you were looking for. Wasting your time and theirs in the process. E.g. most of us still buy clothes from a bricks and mortar store because we want to try it on, etc, but would you say that the majority of goods we purchase need constant reviewed in our hands prior to purchase. Perhaps we'll just have review warehouses where we can go to review items from massive collections. Then go and complete our purchase online. Perhaps companies will just send out samples to these warehouses and the real stock lies somewhere else awaiting dispatch post order completion online. So as a retailer, you promote the items you sell at a warehouse along with all the other retailers that stock that particular item. The more money that goes in to promotion, perhaps the more samples that are available or presentation, etc. Then online you just compete over price, quality of help desk, speedy of delivery, etc.

At the end of the day, as consumer, we're all pretty much interested in the following...
A) Will it suit my needs?
How much will it cost?
C) How soon can I have it?

It is my own responsibility as a consumer to establish my own needs. If something new comes out that I don't know about then it's my own fault for not finding out. Google/Bing are your friends. So information is always key to the consumer. Sales people cannot tell you what you need, they can only persuade you to buy something that you either do need or worse again, think you need. You have to be very clear about what you want so you can figure out (A).

Sorry for my little rant, but as I walked through town the other day I started to think to myself what will all these buildings be used for when Internet and mass competition simply eliminates them. It's already begun, shops are closing down. Some say its a shame and personally I think it's just old business models dying and taking jobs with them. I think retailers need to think again about what they are doing because as a consumer I really think the days of doing business more traditional ways are numbered.

I would be only too delighted to do business with an 100% Irish retailer that utilised the Internet and a more contemporary business model that didn't make me feel like I was being ripped off.