Online shopping's rise somehow sneaks up on retailers

[rcjordan]

Sneaks?!!?  WTF!  Anyway, here's a quote for your luddite friends:

growth in e-commerce has indisputably begun to upend the familiar American shopping economy

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/michael-santoli/online-shopping-s-rise-somehow-sneaks-up-on-retailers---and-consumers-win-161056204.html

[Chunkford]

It fits in more with the average lift style I suppose.
People don't have the time to fit in traipsing around the shops with with long work hours and valuable family time.

For me personally I just hate retail shopping at Xmas.
All the pressure, tension and emotions flying around. It's actually quite scary.
I would rather be at a Michael Bubble concert with the misses. (apologies for any fans out there).

[rcjordan]

The biggest problem is that I can FIND everything I think I might want.  This is breaking me.

A trip to Wallyworld is 16 miles roundtrip or -currently- about $2.75 just for gas.  Add a very conservative 10cents/mile for vehicle wear/depreciation and it's up to roughly $4.25 per trip.  Then there's the sales tax issue....

But the A#1 deal for Christmas is using Amazon Prime to deliver your gifts.

[Chunkford]

That's not fair. Your prime is better than ours!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DBYBNEE/ref=gno_joinprmlogo
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/prime/pipeline/landing?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

[Brad]

Amazon is my department store now, especially with Prime.  Food, spirits and old fashioned hardware are the things I go to a store for anymore.

Old fashioned downtowns are great for dining and entertainment.  If I never see a mall or strip mall again it bwont be too soon.

[rcjordan]

I am NOT looking for this stuff. It's gushing through my reading list today.

iPhones Are Making Banks Rethink Brick-And-Mortar Branches

Bank of America's fourth quarter (2013) results. About 9% of the bank's check transactions during the fourth quarter were conducted via mobile devices like iPad and iPhones.  "That's up from 7% in the quarter before and [that function] didn't exist until basically the third quarter of [2012],"

http://qz.com/167313/how-iphones-are-forcing-banks-to-rethink-brick-and-mortar-branches/

[danieljack]

Three orders for cabinet knobs of different size, easy right. Oh no. The catalogue said one color and what came was all three different. They said it was my fault!! There must be much better quality control in mfg, inventory, shipping, etc. to replace bricks. Amazon comes close thou.