We’re pleased to announce that as of the start of June, we’re opening up the showroom of our Central Coast organic and health food store, Shop Naturally, for 2 hours every Thursday afternoon from 1pm to 3pm. The northern end of the Central Coast, and Tuggerah in particular, is sadly lacking in a decent organic [...]
The face of retail continues to change in Australia
We’ve seen it on the subway in Tokyo, but now, in Australia, you can go shopping with your smart phone at Sports Girl without actually setting foot inside the store. The outside of the store has giant photos of selected products with QR codes on them. Scan the items with your phone and add them [...]
Turn your iPhone into a credit card facility
PayPal are introducing a new service called PayPal Here. With an iPhone ap and a swiping device that can be plugged in to the headphone jack on your iPhone, you can turn your phone in to a mobile eftpos machine. It’s not available yet, but you can sign up for notification when it arrives. Visit [...]
ACCC to champion small online retailers in 2012
We read an article today on Power Retail about the ACCC’s plans to help small online businesses get their hands on stock without the ‘big boys’ cornering the market. They’re also going after distributors and wholesalers who are telling their retailers what they can and can’t sell product for. This part I absolutely don’t agree [...]
e-tailers refund policies under the microscope
It seems that some of the countries biggest online retailers has less than impressive refund policies, including Apple, Coles Online & Officeworks. The Consumer Action Law Centre went through many of Australia’s major players and found fault with almost all of them. Personally, in the past, I was rather miffed at the ‘store credit’ only [...]
Changes in retail spending over the past decade
The Herald Sun reported a drop in the sales of department stores between 2001 and 2011 from 8.4% of the total retail spend in Australia to 7.5%. I don’t think this is a massive drop considering our local climate and it certainly wasn’t the largest jump up or down in the article (read here). Electronic [...]