In common with my peers I buy quite a bit online. Yesterday, for example, I bought two cds, while the day before I bought a book for a work related matter. Living in a provincial Irish town means that I have to buy certain items online, while other items are either more convenient or appeal to the “click to buy” mentality (impulse buying tied to my credit card)
Rymus made me think about online vs offline transactions a bit this morning when talking about delivery times:
€150 locally with a 2/3 day wait or around €100 from the other side of the world with a guaranteed 3 day delivery.
We recently bought something from a vendor in Hong Kong that made its way half way round the globe in 3 days. A local vendor would have taken more than a week to get the item in.
In some areas online vendors, such as Amazon, can run rings around your local offline vendor. However you should evaluate all the factors before dismissing the local shop. Most online vendors cannot match the personal service / expertise.
It’s easier to shop online.
I buy online around EUR 80 each month online because I know I will get the items with less hassle than trying to locate the item in the shops after getting a parking space and dealing with all the pop-up distractions associated with passing the windows of other merchants en route to finally locating what you want.
I’m with the same mentality of Bernie. How long does it take you to drive to town, find a space in a carpark after the first three you tried were full, get to the shop, queue for 15 minutes, back to the car, an hour trying to get out of the carpark…
More and more, my trends are going towards buying online. I’m hitting Amazon once a month for books, picking up cd’s and music and of course, my good friend eBay.
My biggest investment online is musical equipment which I order in from Germany and for the savings and delivery time, I’m more than willing to forsake the personalm, friendly shopping experience with my local dealers.
I still enjoy the banter with the salesman in the shop though, so I can’t see myself buying some things online for quite some time.
I’d also hate to see the local vendors completely wiped out, though I have to be pragmatic about it and buy where I can get what I want easily and at the best price.
I used to buy inkjet cartridges from cartridge world, the new ones EUR 45, remanufacuterd EUR 25, but I can get them on ebay for EUR 5 inc postage form the UK. Similar story with paper, believe it or not its cheaper to but watermarked A4 from an ebay seller in Northern Ireland then from a shop in the city.