Click and collect may offer small businesses at Dubbo new opportunities for trade as they brace for an online shopping onslaught.
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Dubbo Chamber of Commerce president Matt Wright had an encouraging message for local stores as global retail giant Amazon launched its Australian operations.
He says large retailers have adopted the click-and-collect model, which involves customers making a purchase on the internet and then picking it up from the local outlet.
He saw no reason why smaller businesses couldn’t take advantage of the concept as well, bringing people into the store - where they might add to their purchases.
“I think that is a space that local businesses probably haven’t stepped up in,” Mr Wright said.
“We have this online concept that if somebody buys something online you have to post it to them but if the local people can just pop in and grab it anyway when they get two minutes, and then ‘would you like fries with that’ when they’re in there.
“So we may start seeing a little bit more of that of that click and collect concept for small stores rather than just the big guys.”
Traditional bricks and mortar stores could add an important second shopfront with an online presence, the chamber president said.
“We’re probably slow adopters,” Mr Wright said.
“There are a good number of businesses that are online, no question, but I think regionally we do rely on people walking through the front door.
“It’s just probably changing the mentality a little bit of a lot of shop owners that there is a way to be open 24 hours a day without you sitting behind the cash register, waiting for a customer to come in.”
Amazon sent its Australian website live with "millions" of products for sales on Tuesday, offering next-day deliveries and discounts of up to 30 per cent on popular toys, kitchen appliances and fashion brands.
Some Daily Liberal readers were not sold.
“Wasn’t [too] impressed with the prices. I found them too expensive,” Anne Barker Long said in a post to the Daily Liberal Facebook page.
The observation was backed up by retail analysts, who said Amazon's prices were not as aggressive as expected and was unlikely to spoil Christmas for local retailers.
Faye Wheeler
I have been a journalist for more than a decade and in that time I have been keeping Daily Liberal readers up to date about issues affecting them and what's happening in their community. Throughout my career I have covered a range of rounds and most recently I have been focusing on the business round.
I have been a journalist for more than a decade and in that time I have been keeping Daily Liberal readers up to date about issues affecting them and what's happening in their community. Throughout my career I have covered a range of rounds and most recently I have been focusing on the business round.
