Wednesday 7 May 2014

The Aftermath of Online Shopping

Online shopping is something we all enjoy: cheap but stylish clothes, and the feeling you get when your parcel arrives is something which in indescribable and incomparable to anything else. But have we ever thought what its effect is on the hundreds of clothing stores within our country? Of course not. We just want our dress to arrive on time and in perfect condition



The sad truth is that because of how little we usually pay and how convenient it is to choose our whole summer collection in one click, consumers are significantly effecting the Australian economy and the profits of many clothing stores. Christmas time is a period when many retailers update their sales and marketing strategies to attract customers as it is expected that their sales would peak during this time but over the years, there have been decreases in many annual profits because of the fact that many consumers are resorting to online stores to purchase their Christmas gifts. Not only is it usually cheaper, but it saves a lot of time in terms of firstly finding a parking spot, spending ages looking through the clothes that have mostly been thrown to floor and finally spending time waiting in line to process your goods.



Online shopping not only directly affects Australian retailers, but also the economy as a whole. The rise of Australian dollar in the past years has caused imports to be cheaper and exports to be more expensive and in order to control this, the government has introduced a tax on imported goods, known as GST which imposes a 10% tax on imported goods. This tax aims to protect our local stores and to encourage consumers to resort back purchasing Australian goods, rather than going online.


Even though the video below is dated back to 2010, the factors mentioned that effect retailers are still evident today and are probably even more heightened because of the increase in technological resources.




- Areeka 

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