Online Shopping
Houndstooth branding, glistening perfume counters and the sound of a piano floating through the lobby in the afternoon. The David Jones department store has always been more than a little up itself. For good reason. It’s a brand synonymous with quality, luxury goods and rarefied notions of good taste.

It’s a powerful and effective retail attitude that’s worked for the company since 1838. But it’s time for a serious revamp. If David Jones wants to survive this slump, they need to make it easier for us to buy their stuff.
The modern consumer wants more than easy access to great brands. We want dynamism, convenience, intelligence and flexibility just as much. Maybe even more.
Thanks to the high dollar, Australians have become the world’s most savvy online bargain hunters. Parcels with cheaper DVDs from the US, computer games from Hong Kong and books from Britain now arrive on our shores in the thousands every day.

Australian buyers obviously know how much they can save by shunning domestic retailers for their overseas competitors. Little wonder when, say, Steve Jobs’ biography is selling for $44 in Australia but for the equivalent of just $18 in Britain. Some British online retailers even offer free world-wide shipping.
What most Australians are probably unaware of is how much more they could save if it was possible to buy other goods internationally. Cars for example.
Continue reading "How are we ripped off? Let us count the ways…" »
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Mark says:
Actually I we are getting ripped off by overpopulating and choking ourselves into a corner, who cares about cars, raced them, fixed em and wasted too much money on them. We are getting overregulated because we are overpopulated. Read more »
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james martel says:
@ marley, the americans dont have julia gillard and the watermelon greens, though i think we will see obamas true colours if he wins a second term….. Read more »
According to Penbo, the retail union’s anachronistic attachment to Catholic values - keep the Lord’s day holy and all that - spells trouble for the retail industry.

As a card-carrying Catholic, and a former member of (and organiser for) the shop assistants’ union, I thought it might be fair to lob a few thoughts into the mix by way of retort.
As it happens, my mum and sister run a bookshop in Sydney’s CBD (www.portico.com.au), and a mighty fine one at that, so I am no stranger to the challenges faced by retailers in the current market.
Continue reading "Families close for business when shops open longer" »
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DrFriendless says:
Tim, the retail industry should be doing everything it can to hold onto customers. As far as I’m concerned, most retailers might as well close down because they’re never open when I’m not working. That’s a shame because I have a lot of money to spend. As for Sundays, there… Read more »
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SydSteve says:
The Union is there to protect the rights of the employee. Not the rights of the Employer or Consumer. Read more »
One of the joys of multiculturalism is that if you suddenly find yourself hankering for a kilogram of pork belly or some Hello Kitty stationery at 9pm on a Monday, you can head to a suburb such as Ashfield in Sydney’s west and shop until you drop.

If Australia has a restrictive shopping hours regime, someone forgot to tell our Chinese friends. In places such as Ashfield or in the many Chinatowns around the land the shops open pretty much whenever they want – which, with the work ethic that defines this excellent community, is almost all the time.
It’s a different story if you have the misfortune of landing in the centre of one of our bigger cities – worst of all Adelaide – on a public holiday weekend, only to discover that penalty rates and state-legislated restrictions on trading hours have combined to deliver a retail experience which is almost as much fun as queuing for bread in Moscow.
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Rob says:
yep Adelaide is a backwater… Read more »
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marley says:
Italy works along the lines of 9 to 1, then 4 to 8. That gives everyone time for lunch, and time for evening shopping. And a siesta in between. Very civilized. Read more »
I arrive at The Press Club on Flinders Street a little early. It’s booked solid. Another noisy night. Kara leads me to one of the quieter tables around the corner. Water will be fine, thank you.

Remarkable to think this was once the headquarters of the mighty Herald and Weekly Times. Newsroom into luxury apartments, print shop into cellar bar, foyer into modern Greek restaurant. Marvelous what you can do with some Kalamata olives and Feta drizzled with a hit television series and a celebrity chef.
Bernie Brookes makes his way to my table. The chief of Myer Holdings is all smiles. Always is. The perils of more than 30 years in retail. The last few herding shareholders. The shoulders of his dark suit are a little stooped.
Continue reading "It’ll take more than free shipping to keep customers" »
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Tom says:
I think the author was taking the piss out of Myers management. Read more »
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Bruce says:
Anna C. Agree. I like going into Myer stores, however, finding help is near impossible. Unless I know EXACTLY what I want, there appears to be little point going into Myers. The shop assistants you can see appear to have to manage a number of service desks and have little… Read more »
Queensland retailers are revolting. Well, they’re fighting back against the trend of people who enter their shops, try on their stuff and then leave without buying it.

What shoppers are doing is sizing it so they can buy it online.
As an online shopper, I take a lot of risks with my purchases. Ask anyone I know if they’ve been given something I’ve bought online because it was too small or too big.
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Destry says:
You’ve really captured all the essnteails in this subject area, haven’t you? Read more »
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libertarian vegetarian says:
Kika, the article is not about shopping on line, it’s about going into a store, trying things on and then buying them elsewhere. I have my own business, not in retail though, so I can understand the concepts here. It is beyond ‘looking for a bargain’, it is the deliberate… Read more »
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and successive governments have failed to curb retailers’ increasing market power, which is why Australians pay more at the store.

Gerry Harvey may be one of Australia’s well known and most successful “traditional” retailers, but he has seriously misjudged the consumer support for online retailing. He is not alone in getting it wrong. Major retailers and shopping centre landlords have also been very unhappy with Australian consumers going online to buy from overseas websites.
Why are the major retailers and shopping centre landlords unhappy with the growth of online retailing? Simply because online retailing offers very strong competition to the major retailers and shopping centre landlords. In the “old” days before the rise of the internet, consumers were basically forced to visit shopping centres and department stores to purchase products.
Continue reading "A cosy club: Why we pay more at the store" »
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Shifter says:
@Zach @Ironside Only certain distributors do this. 2K is a prime example. Others (EA from memory) have identical prices in all regions. The reason for the price difference is backlash from bricks and mortar stores to certain distributors in Australia. The exclusive distribution rights of middle man companies has been… Read more »
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Deb says:
My husband recently went looking for safety chaps to use when cutting wood with a chainsaw on our property. The cheap Chinese pair on sale at the local hardware super-retailer cost the same as the competition standard US pair he ordered over the internet, including postage. GST is not the… Read more »
Change and innovation are always feared, and therefore always resisted.

When the first ATMs were introduced, the banking unions fought against them because they feared it would mean the end of tellers (who can forget the lines we used to endure at banks in the bad old days). Instead, we saw the rise of electronic banking with the banks now involved in almost every transaction. When the video player was first introduced, film industry experts predicted the end of cinemas, but today we are seeing a resurgence in cinema attendance numbers because the industry was forced to become more innovative, and now delivers a significantly enhanced customer experience via new developments such as 3D.
In recent weeks, some of Australia’s larger retailers have vigorously argued that the ability of Australians to buy online will destroy retailing in Australia, with thousands of jobs going off-shore, and that we need to tax the internet to “create a level playing field”. This is despite the fact that less than 3 per cent of all retail sales in Australia are transacted online!
Continue reading "Why good retailers will survive the internet" »
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Jim says:
@Kevin D and Bananabender - the stuff that I order from overseas is typically less than $1000 and typically comes via Royal Mail or US Postal Service and thus is delivered via Australia Post. However, I have ordered some things which have been more than $1k and which have been… Read more »
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James says:
@ Lisa H. I would be a bit more inclined to side with the major retailers had the major retailers involved not brought on the demise of Australian manufacturing and smaller retailers. Harvey Norman was one of the first retailers to give up stocking locally produced goods in favour of… Read more »
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