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Christmas Shopping: Online Vs In-Store December 11, 2013Lifestyle23 Comment

Despite belt-tightening, austerity cuts and Tesco’s value range, we’re still set to spend a helluva lot on Christmas. To put a figure on it, we’re set to spend about £90 billion this festive season.

Success for a lot of retailers means a successful Christmas. In fact, a lot of the time their very survival depends on it. How many shops close up in late January as the realisation that having a good Christmas wasn’t quite good enough. Of course there are many challenges for retailers in the current climate. And sure a dodgy economic recovery is one of them, while the pernicious effect of benefits cuts and the excellent quality of television boxsets also keep people from the high streets. But really the giant insidious beast that is the internet is the real threat to the nations (and indeed world’s) high streets.

Christmas Shopping

The internet has already destroyed DVD sales, helped more than double the sale of vinyl records and basically killed the music industry. Tower records, HMV (at least briefly) and many hundreds of music chains and thousands of independent stores have basically ceased to exist all because buying stuff is so 1990s. Online sales of books and clothes continue to grow and people are increasingly purchasing their groceries online. Pretty soon Ghost Town will not just be an excellent Specials song on the ominous grip of economic turmoil in 1980s Britain but an eerie soundtrack to every trip through the once bustling hub of the world’s shopping districts.

At least that’s one theory. But where is the pesky evidence to back that up? Last Christmas (when I gave you my heart) about 12 per cent of Christmas spending was done online, which is pretty significant. That number is set to rise this year. In fact, experts are saying that online sales will rise by £2 billion in 2013.

So why are people starting to ignore the crowded aisles, long queues and sickly seasonal songs that take a tight grip on the nation’s shops at Christmas time? There might be a clue in that question somewhere.

Queues are of course one of the big reasons. Sure towns look lovely all lit up and most people with even a trace of a hint of the Christmas spirit will be enjoy the seasonal atmosphere but who enjoys 30 minute queues, arm to armpit with some smelly bruiser who is only in the queue to buy socks for a mother-in-law he hasn’t spoken to in 12 months? No one, that’s who.

Online Christmas Shopping

The internet also offers us more choice. Just grab our credit card, point and click at what we want and, hey presto, checkout and we’re done. If you chance the high street of course, you might get want you want, or you might spend 12 hours looking for it and come back with a box of wine and some socks, only one of which is a present.

There are some drawbacks to online shopping and it would be positively negligent of us not to point them out. Online fraud is still an issue, although an increasingly small one as people become more and more tech savvy. Also there are more ways of telling whether someone is legit or not. However, until that present is in your hands, there is no way of being absolutely certain its condition, or whether it’s even what you ordered. Bargaining is out online too, although how much bargaining you’ll do during a hectic Christmas shop is probably a moot point. Perhaps the biggest advantage of in-store shopping vs the online alternative is the returns policy. It is much easier to return something to a store that physically exists and you can actually walk to, than one that exists principally within the opaque shelter of the World Wide Web.

Still all-in-all shopping online does have many of advantages. Although since Christmas is a holiday perpetuated entirely on the basis of traditions many people don’t necessarily enjoy, there is probably a core group of shoppers who will never give up in-store shopping simply because the hassle, stress, success and failure of the Christmas shop is all part of what makes the holiday special, or stressful, either really.

Win a Harrods Hamper!

To ease the pain this Christmas as you think about all those things you need to tick off your list before Christmas Eve and the shops shut; we have a delightful Christmas hamper from Harrods.  Please note that the hamper has changed from the previous image advertised due to availability issues.  The below Tea Time hamper is now up for grabs.

Harrods Hamper

Simply answer the question below.

Which are of London is Harrods located?

Competition is now closed :(

The competition will close on 15th December 2013. Any comments left containing the answer will not be published. The winners will be drawn at random and notified by email.

Win competitions at ThePrizeFinder.com


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