Shopping online means range, price and, of course, service

Let’s begin with an admission: I sometimes shop online.

Why? Beyond being remarkably cheap, I have whatever amount of time I like to consider my possible purchases, it is easy to compare products and prices, the range is near endless and although the face-to-face contact is missing, the service is spectacular.

The benefits of shopping online are massive and to combat them, local traders need to consider what it is they do, upgrade every aspect of their service and make the most of what they are, local.

My online shopping begins with research that takes me to “stores” primarily in Great Britain and America and from those two places I can usually find what it is I’m searching for.

Many things I go online to buy are not items I would expect local stores to stock and being aware of that, I understand that it would be necessary to order it.
It is right there that the local trader hits their first hurdle. Ordering something is not an issue, but I would like to know it has actually happened and have some written acknowledgement of that action, exactly what I get when I shop online.
Besides having my order confirmed online, I’m then told when it has been dispatched from the warehouse and depending on what level of freight I’ve paid for, when I can expect it to arrive.
Secondhand books (above right) are an interest of mine and locally, and that is wherever I happen to be, I’m mostly simply directed to the area of interest to be confronted by a mass of books.
Searching through the books can be interesting in itself, but online I simply type in the title and I’m given a range to consider ranging from ex-library books to never read near-new books or, if I’m looking for something special, I’m able to consider “collector’s” books.
The local trader has the huge advantage of being just that, “local” and should exercise that edge to cater for customers’ specific needs and add to their business the things that attract people to online shopping – service (and more service), price and range.

Rich benefits awaits communities that adopt cycling

The rich benefits awaiting any centre that embraces cycling were explained recently in Melbourne.

Shepparton was not specifically mentioned, but implicit in the comments of the bicycle manager from Portland, Oregon, Roger Geller (right, centre), was the observation that people here need only adopt cycling to access those benefits.
Mr Geller spoke to more than 100 people at the University of Melbourne and then repeated his story about the transformative value of cycling again two days later as the keynote speaker at Melbourne’s Bike Futures conference.
Portland is in every way different from Shepparton, but the essence of Mr Geller’s message migrates without any lessening of its worth.
Shepparton, along with all other communities, has evolved around the mobility allowed by the motor car and easy access to cheap fossil fuels and in a time when there was no knowledge of, and therefore interest in, such things as climate change.
All that has changed – oil is becoming scarcer so will, in the foreseeable future, become impossibly expensive and it is now clearly understood that human actives are impacting on our climate.
Cycling can play a significant role in easing those difficulties.
Portland did not have any sort of real cycling culture 20 years ago, but now 10 per cent of “Portlanders” consider cycling as the prime means of transport.
In a city of nearly 600 000 that is a significant number and retailers, about 130 of them, reacting to the social change have asked for on-street car parking in front of their shops to be replaced by bicycle parking, “corrals” as they are described .
Portland has 500 km of developed bikeways, both on-road lanes and specific bake paths, and every day they are busy with commuters on bicycles traveling about the city.
Those developed bikeways cost about $60 million, which is equivalent in cost of two kilometers of traditional inner-city freeway.
The savings in road costs are obvious and with research illustrating most car trips are just six kilometres and as bicycles travel nearly as fast as a car, they save money and help the environment, and beyond that cycling boosts our broader wellbeing.