Tips on shopping safely
With almost a million Australians shopping online for the first time this year, many people are expected to finally let the temptation of queue-free gift-wrapped presents sent straight to the door of their intended recipient overcome inherent concerns of credit card security and suspicions of late deliveries.
Global Review's Shiffman has some tips on what to look for when sizing up an e-tailer whose shores you wash up on while surfing the Internet.
"Some good things are a phone number, a physical address, for people that are particularly nervous they can actually contact the retailer and see what sort of a response they get," said Shiffman. "Obviously making sure that the ordering part of the site is actually secure-those are the types of things that are giveaways. Making sure there's a returns-and-refunds policy on the site, a security policy and a privacy policy on the site, and if that business has an offline store or stores as well, then that would give me more confidence."
However, he does not advise people to avoid small e-tailers.
"I still think that in the vast majority of cases small online retailers are more committed to the online shopping experience than large retailers," says Shiffman.
"There are some exceptions, obviously the division of David Jones that is David Jones Online is completely committed to selling online, but I think in the main you've got a lot more small retailers, who may only be on the Internet or they may be using the Internet to supplement an offline business, but they're more excited and committed to the online experience."
A persistent lack of consumer confidence in etailers is a problem Shiffman addresses through Global Reviews, by providing a comprehensive analysis of all the online retailers and benchmarking their performance.
Finally, Shiffman cautions e-shoppers to leave enough time for the store to deliver the product. While flower shops routinely offer next day delivery, some of the larger retailers, especially big music retailers, give two weeks as their standard delivery time, according to Shiffman.
"Ideally these sites should actually be telling you on their site what sort of delivery time you should actually expect, and the best operations provide you with the options of paying extra for a courier service if you really need the item in a hurry," he said.
And are these delivery estimates usually accurate?
"Uh, no," he says. "If people are going to order for Christmas they should allow at least two weeks as the lead time for ordering," said Shiffman.
So if the space under your tree is still looking bare you better get cracking, there's only 18 more reboots until Christmas.
