Online sales rip High Street to shreds
The figures are gradually emerging for retail performance in Q4 2008 and high street sales figures are a bit of a mixed bag, some stores have generated increases (against the trend), some have suffered small losses but the overall trend of high street sales is down, down, deeper and down and so doom and gloom - gloom and doom is
forecast for the economy.
However, this is a little like a soccer player taking their eye off the ball. Retails sales are now just one part of the equation - year on year online sales have shown massive growth IRO 30-50% year on year for the past 5 years and estimated to be 30% for Q4 2008. This has to be migration and cannibalisation from the high street. I know that I don't have any more money to spend, and neither do most of the people I know so (in the main) this is not new business.
No matter who you believe (the British Retail Consortium state just 5% of retail spend is online whilst Interactive Media in Retail Group reckon that is's closer to 15%) there is a vast migration to the online shopping environment and if it is cannibalisation then someone has to get hurt - and it's the high street that suffers.
Or does it. A recent report from Nielsen Online (
PDF summary here) shows that with the exception of Amazon (who top their table of the most popular UK online retailers in Q4 with 15.6m visitors +18% on 2007) and Play.com who come in at 4
th place with a 35% increase in visitors to 5.7m all of the rest of the top 10 are established high street players - Argos (+32%),
Tesco (+15%), M&S (+46%),
Littlewoods (+66%),
Currys (+35%),
Asda (+53%), John Lewis (+31%) and Next (+38%).
This is simply further vindication of the move to an online environment. Why would anyone torture themselves by fighting the traffic, playing "hunt the parking space", digging out the change from your pocket to feed the parking machines (why can't towns be enlightened and provide the option of SMS payment or cash) and then braving the crowds in the high street to trudge from shop to shop comparing prices, checking availability and finally purchasing. Only to have to lug it all the way back to the car and then to start all over.
WHY would anyone put themselves through this torture when you can do it from home (or the office), shopping when YOU want to, not when the stores feel like opening and as a nocturnal web dweller this is a REAL benefit.
You have access to ALL of the stores, not just those that have a presence in your nearest town, you can instantly compare prices and availability. Hunt for discounts and cashback deals, place your order and just sit back and wait for the delivery vans to start turning up.
So, the simple message is - if you can sell your products or services online then you HAVE to. If you fail to realise this, your customer base will be leached away by more enlightened businesses and I can't believe that I am still pushing this same message years after online trading became a viable option for ALL traders.
Labels: Credit Crunch, high street sales, Online retail sales, retail downturn
Things we take for granted - #1. Water
Last Wednesday, the last Wednesday in November, the 26th, our water supply failed. Pressure had died away to a mere trickle. I did all the logical stuff, checked the stopcock on the incoming feed - turned it off and the trickle died, turned it back on full and the trickle was restored. Went outside to the water meter / valve. Turned it off and the trickle died, turned it on and the trickle was restored.
I looked at the dial to see whether water was gushing through the meter and out through a hole in the pipe between the meter and the house. This would have been the worst-case scenario. A leak on my side of the meter would have made it my responsibility but there was nothing.
I checked with my neighbour to see whether he had a supply. He ran his tap for me to hear - he still had water so I phoned the 24hour "help" line provided by my water Co., Thames Water.
After navigating through a number of automated menus, i finally made it through to someone. He looked up on the system and said that there had been no other reported issues and so drew the conclusion that the lack of supply was my problem and that I'd have to call a plumber to get it resolved. I was 100% certain that this was not so. However, my argument fell on deaf ears (my argument being that no water was flowing through the meter so the problem must lie upstream).
It was too late to call a plumber so we started to (slowly) fill jugs and saucepans ready for the next day.
Thursday came, a plumber arranged. Due to work volumes, the plumber was not able to make it until towards the end of the business day. He arrived, we talked. He reckoned that it would be a Thames Water issue but proceeded to carry out some basic diagnostics. He dismantled the internal stopcock to check for blockage. He knew it would be clear but needed to prove this so that Thames Water would be convinced that everything had been checked properly.
He went to the water meter and drew the same conclusion as mine earlier - no water was flowing through the meter and so the fault would be upstream of the meter.
He left me with a bill. I called Thames Water. They agreed to get a contractor our within 4 hours. Not bad, I thought. then, an hour later (about 7pm) I had another call from TW. How was the water he asked. Was it enough to get by with until tomorrow? To me, this sounded like someone trying to get out of a night call and defer it until the next day. I told him that the TW help line had advised me that someone would be there within 4 hours of my original call. He then said he'd be there inside 90 minutes.
Fair play, he arrived within an hour with a road crew. They used a power saw to cut through the pavement and a mini digger to start digging down. It's now 8.30ish and they are not quiet.
After about an hour of digging they identified the problem. A piece of packing material that should have been removed prior to the original pipe laying had made its way down the pipe and settled across my spur, cutting the flow. TW were responsible, they will fix and they will meet the cost of the plumber that I had to call.
By now it was late - water supply had been restored and they agreed to come back on Friday to fill in the hole.
Fill in the hole they did but the quality of work is so poor that I think it needs redoing. The pavement was covered in mud - as was the front door and window sills of our house. They left their "Men at Work" signs and the barriers that you can see in the pictures and these were not removed until I emailed Customer Service at TW.
The barriers have now been taken away, the signs have been collected but the pavement is still muddy - less so than it was but this is only after some heavy rain. We should not have been left with a pavement in this condition - it should have been restored to as close tot he condition that it was when originally dug up.
I have notified Customer Service at Thames Water and they responded within their 10 day guidelines - and today (15 December) a far more professional restitution has been made - fair play to Thames Water
However, the experience does make one realise how much we in the west take things for granted and how "big" the problems are when things cease to work as we have come to expect. Does pale in to insignificance though when compared to the current (and ongoing)
problems in Zimbabwe
Labels: holes in the road, Thames Water
Public Wi-fi - Value add or revenue generator?+
Was at a hotel in the Midlands earlier. I won't mention their name because that would be like free marketing for them and I don't really want to do that. However, they are a 4 star
hotel located just off the M69 and A5.
Great location, from what I saw of the hotel, it looks OK (in a corporate kind of manner) but, imagine my surprise when I opened my laptop and wanted to access Wi-Fi. £6.99 for an hour something around the £20 mark for an all day connection.
When will a business learn that Wi-Fi is a Value Add NOT a revenue stream. I was hampered by the fact there was no Orange or Vodaphone 3G signal so 3G was out.....so I decided not to go online AND I certainly won't recommend the hotel as a meeting point. Simply extortionate rates.
I now realise that I was less than a mile from a McDonalds and their Wi-Fi is FREE. See, Mikey Ds understands Value Add - coffee for around a pound (and it's pretty good coffee too) and free Wi-Fi compared to coffee at over £2.00 (probably) and no free Wi-Fi.
Heck, a couple of miles further up the road and I'd have found a J.D Wetherspoons pub. Good coffee, soft drinks, reasonable prices and free Wi-Fi. Someone else that understands Value Add rather than Revenue Stream.
Hmmm.....both the latter outlets are aimed at the general public, I suspect that my location was business person focused (read Expense Account).....wonder whether things will change in the credit crunch
Labels: Credit Crunch, Free Wi-Fi, Recesion, Revenue Stream, Value Add
The cabbie and the nun
A cabbie picks up a Nun.
She gets into the cab, and notices that the VERY handsome
cab driver won't stop staring at her.
She asks him why he is staring.
He replies:
'I have a question to ask you but I don't want to offend you.'
She answers,
'My son, you cannot offend me. When you're as old as I am
and have been a nun as long as I have, you get a chance to see and
hear just about everything. I'm sure that there's nothing you could
say or ask that I would find offensive.'
'Well, I've always had a fantasy to have a nun ki ss me.'
She responds,
'Well, let's see what we can do about that: #1, you have
to be single and #2, you must be Catholic.'
The cab driver is very excited and says,
'Yes, I'm single and Catholic!'
'OK' the nun says. 'Pull into the next alley.'
The nun fulfills his fantasy, with a kiss that would
make a hooker blush.
But when they get back on the road, the cab driver starts crying.
'My dear child,' says the nun, 'why are you crying?'
'Forgive me but I've sinned. I lied and I must confess,
I'm married and I'm Jewish.'
The nun says, 'That's OK.
My name is Kevin and I'm going to a Halloween party.'
Is nothing new?
Was having a random browse around the
Internet just now (using
Stumble if you must know) and came across a series of
vintage ads. Scrolling down I came across a "
picturephone" - yes, a telephone with a video screen in......go on, guess...well it was
originally launched in 1964 at the New York World Trade Fair but it was a touch
unwieldy so they released a more compact version in the
early 70s.
And we thought video conferencing was a thing of the mid to late 90s.......just goes to show huh!
MENTAL HOSPITAL PHONE MENU
Hello and thank you for calling The State Mental Hospital. Please select from the following options menu:
If you are obsessive-compulsive, press 1 repeatedly. If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2 for you. If you have multiple personalities, press 3, 4, 5 and 6. If you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want, stay on the line so we can trace your call. If you are delusional, press 7 and your call will be forwarded to the Mother Ship. If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell You which number to press. If you are manic-depressive, hang up. It doesn't matter which number you press, nothing will make you happy anyway. If you are dyslexic, press 9-6-9-6. If you are bipolar, please leave a message after the beep or before the beep or after the beep. But Please wait for the beep. If you have short-term memory loss , press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have low self-esteem, please hang up. Our operators are too busy to talk with you. If you are menopausal, put the gun down, hang up, turn on the fan, lie down and cry. You won't be crazy forever. If you are blonde, don't press any buttons. You'll just mess it up.
CAUTION - Lidl Scam
This is a warning to men who may be regular Lidl or Aldi customers. Over the last month one of my friends became a victim of a clever scam while out shopping. Simply going out to get a few odd's and ends has turned out to be quite traumatic. Don't be naive enough to think it couldn't happen to you or your friends.
Here's how the scam works:
Two very hot 25-26 year-old girls come over to your car as you are packing your shopping into the boot. They both start wiping your windscreen with a rag and Windolene, with their breasts almost falling out of their skimpy little T-shirts. It is impossible not to look.
When you thank them and offer them a tip, they say 'No' and instead ask you for a ride to another store. You agree and they get in the backseat. On the way, they start undressing. Then one of them climbs over into the front seat and starts crawling all over you, while the other one steals your wallet.
He had his wallet stolen July 4th, 9th, 10th, twice on the 15th, 17th, 20th & 24th. Also August 1st, 4th, twice on the 8th, 16th, 23rd, 24th, three times last Saturday and it's very likely to happen again this coming weekend.
So tell your friends to be careful.
P.S. Woolies have wallets on offer for £2.99 each.
