Online shopping. Retailers suffering. High Australian dollar. Controversy.
Frankly, I just like to shop.
I buy in stores, I buy online. I buy local products, I buy foreign products. I buy from local online stores, I buy from international bricks and mortar stores. I buy.
Clothes and shoes in particular. As I may have mentioned before I basically sleep in my closet. I get bored easily and like to buy new things. I am getting better at clearing out the old things. If I won the lottery I would spend my life travelling the world first class, staying in fabulous hotels and buying clothes and shoes. Oh, and set up a huge charitable foundation. Of course. Goes without saying. Right?
When I go overseas, which I do two or three times a year for work and/or a break, I go shopping. Always. I just came back from Paris and London with a number of successful work outcomes and a bag full of basics for next winter. And a pair of gold designer shoes.
I also frequent international online stores.
My rules for my international shopping trips, both real and virtual, are the same:
1. I don't buy Australian designers or products overseas, ever. Although increasingly I can, and at prices that are comparable.
2. I don't buy anything overseas that I can buy here at even close to the same price. So the chain stores that exist here I usually don't even look at. (I am probably one of the few people actively annoyed by the arrival of stores like Zara and the forthcoming arrival of Topshop and Uniqlo in Australia. I like picking up cheaper stuff from those stores overseas and have them be unique at home; now everyone will have access. (But, really, the arrival of Uniqlo will be a boon for buying basics, believe me.))
3. If I can buy an international product in Australia for a comparable price, I will do so, but if I can't, I'll buy online.
The last point is relevant to why so many people buy online, I think. The items I buy online are items that either (a) I cannot get here at all; or (b) I cannot get here at an even remotely the same price.
Take those gold shoes. Bought in Paris, in the designer store, at full price. I can in fact buy them here if I look hard. For almost $300 more than I paid in Europe. I could also have bought them online, and likely would have had I not managed to sneak 2 days in Paris, for the European price plus non-prohibitive shipping.
When it comes to Australian products, I also buy in store and online from Australian stores. And over the last couple of days I've had the perfect example of these things coming together in a way that made me laugh. Largely at my own laziness, but also at the way things sometimes work out.
Last evening I was killing time in the office waiting for an email before I had to leave for a seminar. There was no point in starting something new, so I was surfing the web and visited the site of one of my favourite local retailers, Alice Euphemia. They have both a regular store and an online one.
I wasn't intending to buy anything, but then I saw a dress that I loved, by an Australian designer, and I ordered it, just like that. Took all of two minutes. If I had been in the store itself I probably would never have noticed the dress in the way I did online.
I got the confirming emails and then, about 10 minutes after I placed the order, my phone rang. It was the store. Hugely apologetic, she advised that the site hadn't been updated during the day, and they were sold out of the size I'd ordered. However, she'd ordered lower numbers in that size because the sizing ran big and most people fitted into a lower size. She'd call the designer to see if they had any in the size I'd ordered, but in the meantime would I like them to send across the smaller one to try and check?
Here's where the worlds collided, because, really, I was just being lazy, as the actual store is only a block and a half from my office. So, I said I'd just come down and try it on. If it fits, great, if not, they'll re-credit my card in the store on the spot.
And so I went down today. They not only had the lower size waiting for me, they'd called the designer and had the larger size on its way if necessary. I tried on the dress, the lower size fitted perfectly, they wrapped it up and I left the store, bag in hand. Complete with online purchase bonus bottle of nail polish.
If I'd actually spotted the dress in the store and the smaller size was the only one on the rack, I'd never have tried it on the same way I'd never have ordered it online.
When I got back to the office the 'your order has shipped' email was in my inbox.
Best of both worlds.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to trawl the internet for shoes, because the gold ones just don't go with the new dress...
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