Members John81 Posted September 14, 2014 Members Share Posted September 14, 2014 Shopping online for presents is much more convenient than driving all over and walking through store after store. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rosie Posted September 14, 2014 Members Share Posted September 14, 2014 makes sense Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Alimantado Posted September 15, 2014 Members Share Posted September 15, 2014 I dropped amazon.co.uk when I heard it was one of the worst offenders in terms of using what they call 'creative accounting' to avoid paying tax in UK. Google was exposed at the same time and I wondered whether I'd be able to abandon either, but although I still use Google I've managed to *almost* completely drop Amazon. Went from doing all my online shopping there to less than one thing a year. Power to the consumer! :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Miss Daisy Posted September 15, 2014 Members Share Posted September 15, 2014 interesting! I wonder about ebay? anyone know? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rosie Posted September 15, 2014 Members Share Posted September 15, 2014 i don't/won't shop ebay. i have heard of people getting scammed and a friend of mine did...my opinion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Miss Daisy Posted September 15, 2014 Members Share Posted September 15, 2014 I have over 2,000 transactions with ebay in last 8 years and have had no prOBlems. If your item never arrives you get your money back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DaveW Posted September 15, 2014 Members Share Posted September 15, 2014 Shopping online destroys local business. At least where the online shop is out of town. But when it saves you 50% of the price, it is hard. I know that with bicycles you can get the same bike from an online store, delivered to your door for, in one particular instance, less than half price. $2999 in the local bike shop, online from England $1299 including delivery, in Aussie dollars. Hard to support local when it costs you thousands. (Looking by the way, not buying.....) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rosie Posted September 16, 2014 Members Share Posted September 16, 2014 a friend of mine bought a phone from ebay last Christmas and hooked it up to her computer and it froze her computer  hey things happen. I am happy nothing bad has happened to you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members John81 Posted September 16, 2014 Members Share Posted September 16, 2014 I live in a very rural area. There are few local businesses anymore. The large national corporations have driven them out. The few who remain are forced to charge far higher prices than the big chain stores. Â What I buy online couldn't be bought from a truly local business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rosie Posted September 16, 2014 Members Share Posted September 16, 2014 businesses are closing here fast too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members John81 Posted September 16, 2014 Members Share Posted September 16, 2014 When I was a child, and into my youth, we could guy anything we needed right here in this little town. The places like Kmart, Walmart, McDonalds, chain gas stations and the like started taking over the small cities in the area and it became cheaper for people to drive there to shop plus they had more variety. That drove our cafe's, local gas stations and other businesses out of business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rosie Posted September 16, 2014 Members Share Posted September 16, 2014 yes they sure did. I remember those days Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DaveW Posted September 16, 2014 Members Share Posted September 16, 2014 Yep - and online is just another pressure on the little local guys. The big stores are destroying the little family businesses, and more is coming from the online options. But when the pressures of life close in and you have to have an item that is far far far cheaper on line, what do you do? What can you do? If the choice is feeding your family and buying on line, or going without weekly needs to get new tyres locally, there is little choice. ...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Alimantado Posted September 16, 2014 Members Share Posted September 16, 2014 That's the free market. Small businesses have to be enterprising and add value to their products/services in ways bigger competitors can't and consumers have to be savvy and remember that paying more in time and money for local goods/services can sometimes be worth it to them in other ways, for example having more local jOBs. Â Where I live many local businesses make the choice an easy one by not being enterprising. If an electrical store only opens 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday, the hours I'm at work, it becomes 10 times easier for me to buy online even if the shop is on my journey home. Where I used to live there was a community meeting about late opening and many local shops said stuff along the lines of "we don't want to be running the shop outside of 9-5 business hours--we have lives too you know!" That's up to them, of course, but could you imagine a restaurateur saying that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DaveW Posted September 16, 2014 Members Share Posted September 16, 2014 But big companies undercut the small ones, even taking a loss for long enough to kill them, then when the competition is dead, they charge what they like...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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