With the ABC shop being the latest victim of the online shopping monster, many jobs will once again be lost.

It was blatantly obvious that massive job losses would be the end result, so has the gamble of online shopping been worth the punt?

Hi rehctub. I do a reasonable amount of Oz online, or phone shopping, as with reliable suppliers, it is often cheaper to get stuff posted/couriered from anywhere in Oz, than to drive to a shop. These purchases have GST on them of course.

I find if you do your math properly, it is rarely economical to buy things that are available in Oz from overseas suppliers. They often look cheap, but with exchange & shipping costs, that advantage often disappears.

With my old Triumph sports cars, I buy from local suppliers wherever possible, even if this is slightly more expensive. It is very much to the advantage of us enthusiasts to have local companies stocking parts for our cars, to help keep the old marques viable & alive.

With some less often required stuff it is necessary to buy from England or the US. It pays to be careful when you do. Some suppliers try to make large profits by overcharging for freight

Rehctub, the world has moved on, as far as shopping is concerned.
For all those that may lose their jobs in shops and stores etc, there are many other people now in the online store business, so I think it all works out in the end.

Living in a rural area as I do, online shopping has been a wonderful development.
It means I don't have to travel many miles to a city I hate going to, just to buy an item not available in my town.
And most times the items are cheaper delivered right to my door, than going to the dreaded big smoke!

Hi Butch,
I think online shopping was not that long ago a novelty, just for a few computer savvy geeks having a bit of fun. The big retailers were not that interested, but have things changed. OLS is now big business and growing fast, 20% pa. It will eventually reach its maturity and growth will drop to a normal level. Within a generation or less OLS with be the natural, normal way to shop, and shop shopping will be the exception, but there will be a demand for the traditional shopping, some people actually enjoy it, why I do not know.
Young people are already seeing OLS as normal for them, where as older people are still making the transition, some not at all. The big sufferers first off are the big retail stores with massive overheads and huge margins, your DJ's and Myers, following them will be the boutique specialty stores, large and small the Anaconda type store, the little clothing store, right down to newsagents, finally the supermarket will suffer from a decline in walk in trade. those who adjust and move to become a part of OLS will minimise the pain, others will simply go out of business. The big suffer will be the 'Westfield' type shopping centre, they simply can't go online. The winners, could well be your local convenience type store, along with those providing fresh produce, plus those offering an experience like restaurants, not the bottom end Macca's type store, no experience there just order on line.

The ABC can no longer afford the shop rental, this is what happens when you cut funding.

"The ABC can no longer afford the shop rental, this is what happens when you cut funding." Boohoo. Now we are expected to subsidise the ABC's store rent too.

Doog, if the ABC can't run a competitive shop, it shouldn't be in that business.

That could be said for 80% of shops, they are all in the boohoo's. No one is buying unessential items any more. A sign of the atmosphere we are in at present, not to indulge. It's best to pay down mortgage, it's a dog eat dog situation we are in, which does not look good for the longer term.
We have a govt; which further wants to downgrade wages and put more pressure on small business, so something has to give, and that happens to be retail.

Great news. The ABC would have run their shops like their stations. Over staffed, by over paid dills, & funded by the poor bl**dy tax payer. It is a good sign that they are cutting a little waste.

Now if we can force them to get rid of all staff on over $100,000 a year, we will be starting to get some where.

I love the ABC shops and am so sorry to see them go.
It's the only place as someone stated where you
can buy Humpty Dumpty.

I'm not that into online shopping.
I prefer to feel, and touch, before I buy.
Of course TVSN is another story - especially
Kellys Kloset Kaftans - so gorgeous!

Hasbeen You would be a hatchet man just like Abbott. How many have ABC shops given jobs to. Online stores only have a fraction of employees.
There is not enough jobs around now, without penny pinching.

It all adds up to longer dole queues. So who wins.

I also like to browse through the ABC Shop. The staff are always most helpful with advice on a particular DVD or Book I might enquire about. Moreover I feel comfortable having a brief chat with them, usually about some no account matter ? Yes indeed I will miss them when they close.

The online ABC shop had no reason to exist, that's why it failed.

I can go to my local JB Hi-Fi and there's a whole aisle of ABC/BBC DVDs.

I could also buy them from a number of other online DVD stores that also sell 1000's of other titles ABC don't have.

Online only works it you have a huge range or a hard-to-find or luxury niche specialty.
ABC had neither.

JB HI FI - here we come!

Oh god doog, have you any financial sense.

It is only a job if it is self supporting, & actually makes a profit for the owner, in the ABCs case the tax payer.

It is perhaps a pity Foxy & o sung wu will no longer have the pleasure of browsing ABC shops, however I have much better things to do with my money than pay ABC staff to chat to them.

If we are going to employ people in useless activities, we might as well have them paint rocks white, it would cost less of the money we don't have to waste.

It's not conventional online shopping that's the main threat, it's digital downloads. Still, they do sell merchandise other than DVDs, so I hope that with fewer shops they'll be able to continue on for a while yet.

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Shockadelic, the online ABC shop hasn't failed. Online's going to be an increasing part of their business as the physical stores close.

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doog, the way things are meant to work, having fewer employees is good because it frees them up to do something more productive.

The trouble is: at the moment businesses aren't spending enough money employing people because consumer demand is depressed, and governments aren't doing so because they erroneously believe that trying to run a surplus would be good for the economy, despite the reverse being true at this stage of the economic cycle. So we're stuck with unemployment, and more likely than not we're no closer to an actual surplus.

Aidan, I responded to other people's comments which seemed to indicate the online store had failed ("has the gamble of online shopping been worth the punt?").

But even so, it will fail sooner or later.
For the reasons I stated.
It has no validity in and of itself.

You can probably find everything they sell elsewhere, with 1000's of additional items not available at ABC.

They suffer the delusion that "ABC" is a brand with some intrinsic value, like Tiffany's or Harley Davidson.

People will buy from those stores just because of the name (what it represents).
Not so with "ABC".
It has no brand value or meaning.
R.I.P. A.B.C.

Shops are open to make money, and plenty are still doing so in spite of OLS.

Successful shops do this by selling what buyers want. Music and video stores are going out of business all around the world because people are buying it in digital form. Shops that survive change their business model, as the ABC has just done.

Suze, anyone who thinks online shopping supports the same amount of jobs is kidding themselves.

Browsing online fir your items costs nothing to the shop owner, except for the likes of car sales.com.

Self serve checkouts are just one example of the impact online shopping is having the noose is tightening.

An item I bought a few of online recently which I could have got locally. A lot of bits that I buy are not readily available locally (or sometimes in Australia), if they are they are not manufactured here.

I like Jaycar, shop there when it's viable and appreciate the staff so am including them to illustrate the price differential that is often the case with small bits and pieces rather than as a dig at a good store.

Jaycar's version http://www.jaycar.com.au/Kits,-Science-%26-Learning/Electronic-Project-Kits/Computer-%26-Programming/3-Axis-Accelerometer-Module/p/XC4226

$22.95 (plus assuming I don't buy online another $5 or so to drive to to the store or if I buy online from Jaycar add for $7 delivery)

A similar (but I think higher spec) item from ebay http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/MPU-6050-Module-3-Axis-Gyroscope-Accelerometer-Module-for-Arduino-MPU-6050-SN-/151666979825?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&hash=item23500e73f1

$2.70 (delivered to my mailbox if I'm not in a hurry)

By my take on the costs the buy local version is around 10 times the price of an similar item online.

Online shopping hurts retail businesses locally, I'm assuming that some of the cost differences are not readily controllable but a 10 times price difference is difficult to believe. It's also providing advantage to buyers.

R0bert

I just bought a solar controller from China 103 $ the exact item here was 325 $, It makes it hard to pass up.
An imported item surely doesn't warrant that sort of differential. Stores here are going to create their own death.

I must be buying from the wrong places, or the wrong stuff.

Last night I was placing an order, online, for some very light, but bulky items, with a NSW supplier. Packed it would be about the size of a half height shoe box.

The price was $17 & some cents, but the invoice total, including packing & freight, was $56 & a few cents. I did not proceed with the purchase.

It is strange how these prices go. I could buy something similar from Hong Kong freight free, but from the US freight would be double the NSW supplier.

Of course you are taking quite a chance with overseas suppliers. Warranty claims, or not to descripting or damaged goods are hard to have corrected.

Hasbeen, a lot on online stores have free shipping if you purchase a certain dollar amount or over (e.g. $80).

With online DVD stores they also have quite frequent discount offers (e.g. 20% off).
So I save up and buy $80 worth on 20% off day!

Sign up for the mailing list of any store you're interested in, and they'll email you when special deals are on.

O sung, you have inadvertidly identified the major problem with retail V online shopping, as all too many these days seek the advice of the shop attendant , hence taking upnthier paid time only to purchase online once they have done their research. This was always going to be the nail in the retailers coffin.

So let's look at the next five to ten years as we are likely to have lost manufacturing of any significance.

Retail is well and truely on the decline and should we strive to meet the emissions reductions being dpsuggested, this will almost certainly put a huge dent in mining, if nit kill it off completely, and aguculture is almost at a point whereby costs have outgrown profits, simly because people don't have to pay $8 fir a cabbage as they have many options with cheap imports.

So essentially there is little hope of reversing the current deline in jobs producing industries and, given we may have stopped the boats, we are still shelling out billions every year to keep the ones who are in detention and there is no end in site fir that problem either.

So we now find ourselves heading for unchartered waters as we have more mouths to feed than ever before, non productive ones at that, a fast declining tax revenue base, a workforce with a very dismal outlook and an aging population who have worked and paid taxes all their lives, yet have little prospect of retiring with any real form of dignity or sence of finical security, and this will lead to less inheritance being left fir following generations.

Wow, what a frightening outlook!