Why was Irish retail so late to embrace distance selling?

Shan Doras

Hearing small shops complaining about the arrival of Amazon dot ie earlier reminded me of just how reluctant most retailers were to embrace online shopping

dxhound2005

It's only a passing fad.

elperello

The market is too small and holding stock is expensive.

I've had a few bad experiences with Irish firms taking payment for goods not in stock.

Atlantic Dawn

Postage costs were shocking within Ireland, never mind trying to get your goods in to another EU country. I suppose if the likes of an Irish based Parcel Motel was around in the late 90's it would have been a big boost for retailers to keep delivery costs down.

I think a lot of it is just scale. You need a big warehouse operation to be serious about that, and they were crowded out, at least pre Brexit, by very capable UK operators who saw this as an extension of their home market and were extremely well setup to serve it.

waywill1966

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122118489#Comment_122118489

They still are! €5 postage to get delivery from Golden Discs!

Pauliedragon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122118489#Comment_122118489

There was a parcel motel near me until about a year ago. Can't think of anywhere else they have them though here in Cork.

SuperBowserWorld

Edit ... delete noise

Padre_Pio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122128782#Comment_122128782

They closed down with Brexit and we're bought by some other crowd.

thomil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122129046#Comment_122129046

I think they’re now operating as OhhPod, and seem to be setting up mostly at retail locations such as Lidl or Tesco:

https://www.oohpod.com

I spotted one at our local Lidl, though I’m not sure it sees much use. They seem to have some quite impressive plans for these things though, if their website is anything to go by.