According to the 2011 Visa Savvy Shopper Survey, the boundaries between e-commerce and "real" shopping are now blurred, with all but 5% of us using a mix of online shopping and stores to supply our needs and wants.
"Price checking in-store before buying online is an on-going trend that is likely to continue, particularly as consumers use the power of the web to make their money go further," Sean Preston, Visa's New Zealand country manager, said. "The lines between high street and e-commerce are becoming increasingly blurred, with growing numbers of global and domestic brands now boasting online storefronts."
One retailer that has built its business to thrive in the blur is Grey Lynn-based Nature Baby, which specialises in high-end baby wear, furniture and accessories, with the emphasis on eco-products such as organic cotton and firmly away from plastics.
Jacob Faull, who founded the company with his wife Georgia shortly after their first baby was born, says the combination of a strong web presence and carefully designed stores has helped the company grow.
The company recognised that, even in Auckland, customers browsed the web before hitting the store, so the efforts they put into the store experience must be matched in online finesse.
Faull gets a little riled by media portrayals of online retail being easier than operating real stores – the concept of working on the online store in the morning and hitting the beach in the afternoon is a fiction, he says.
It may be cheaper to start an online store than one of bricks and mortar, but the efforts and ongoing costs of doing it right are onerous.
"The changing landscape of retail is something a lot of retailers are having to work on," said Faull, "But it keeps retail interesting."
Its online store has allowed Nature Baby to expand beyond the physical catchment area of its three bricks-and-mortar stores in Auckland, and become providers to other regions as well as exporters to the US, Japan, South Korea and Europe.
Just over half of people (54%) told Visa's surveyors they liked there being no queues in cyberspace.
Trade Me remains the most popular store, favoured by 70% of online shoppers. Amazon was favorite with only 19%. Three-quarters of people felt all shops should provide online sales.
The most popular online purchases are entertainment and recreational items (19%), clothes, shoes and accessories (16%), travel and holidays (13%), household items (11%) and electronics (10%).
The internet has also become the home of "want" items, with 79% saying it was where they bought the things they wanted, but did not need.
- Sunday Star Times
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