Poll: Buy online or buy from conventional store?
 

With the Xmas season well and truly upon us, I tried to venture into the shopping malls last weekend to get some presents.

Alittle did I know how packed the malls and stores are! There was no car parks available, we had to park well outside the mall's car park and the constant honking of car horns tells me I don't want to be the one fighting for a car park.

After spending about 3-4 hours looking through the malls, we ended up buying a few things.

The time spent, the hassel with car parking, the long wait at the checkouts, I wonder if it would have been better if I bought my presents online instead?

With online auction sites like eBay and such, you can pretty much get almost anything and at a very good price as well! No more travelling, car parking, waiting, walking around the mall for hours trying to find a gift at a good price......

So, just interested to hear what everything has to say, so a poll:

"Would you buy online or still prefer the conventional store/mall?"

If you were to buy online:

• What would you buy?
• Where would you buy it from?
• What are you looking at buying now for Christmas?
• What would you be interested in buying online?

Same here, parked the car in the last spot available, hardly, front left wheel was on the sidewalk, maximum! Did a rush through the stores, got back 25 minutes later, got a parking ticket of 45 euro.
I buy almost anything online:
-computer parts, all of them
-I buy from recommended online stores, price checking through tweakers' pricewatch to find the cheapest, or near cheapest seller, posting may differ.
-Ebay, but less because I got near dead/dead items 3 times now. It's a nice place to buy small things, like converters, usb casings for my harddisks, usb-floppy drive, things you won't find easy elsewhere, or never at the prices seen there.
-Christmas is not big here, at least in my family, the present giving thing about it. We just had Sinterklaas, (americans made Santa Claus from it), celebrated at 5th of December. It's more a children's thing, and their past year's behaviour is rewarded, or not. Not is unlikely, we don't wanna cause trauma, right?
-I would love to buy more music online, will use ebay for that too. A new cd here is 20 euro, on amazon or ebay 10 dollar! So real cd's, not drm restricted downloads for money.

Re: Poll: Buy online or buy from conventional store?
 

This year I went online and bought several gifts for Christmas. The only problem with online shopping is that you have to do some planning. Last minute shopping won't work this way. The items won't make it by Christmas then.
I ordered some books, some CDs and a camera online. My daughter wants a Japanese-English dictionary this year. The local stores have them for around $40-$50 each. I managed to buy 2 dictionaries for $30 online. Just received them last week (hope she's not reading this!) Got a great deal for the camera as well. You really need to know what you want first and also the approximate value of the items locally otherwise you may end up overpaying. I also tend to buy from local sellers within my own country if I can, although I have ordered my Ipod clone from Hong Kong and a battery replacement for my Pocket pc (also bought online 2 years ago) from China only because the price was right. I've been lucky so far and not been ripped off and items always have arrived as described.

Que,

Wow, I can't believe you got a 45 Euro ticket though! Phew, here in NZ, I complain if I get a NZD$10 (~USD$7) ticket!!

Here, malls don't tend to ticket cars because this will discourage customers from coming back.

And I was lucky. If I stayed away for another hour, the car would have been towed away, extra fine 150 euro!!

20 euro for a music CD? OMG here in argentina you can get new cds for about 9-10 dollars.. you can also get illegal copies for less than 1 dollar :P

Re: Poll: Buy online or buy from conventional store?
 

For me, it'll be half at the shops and half online. i'll usually check out the prices online and then go to the shops and see which offers a better deal.

If the online prices including postage and stuff is about 80% of the retail price, i'd rather get them from the retail shops. As i could just pay and get the item imediately.

Unless the online prices are like less than 2/3 the price of retail, then i'd consider buying from online.

Talking about fines.. i just received a AUD$179 fine for "speeding" at 60km/h on a 50km/h road 2 weeks ago!! Damn.. i should have just went at 100km/h, at least the fine would be more worth it. :lol:

lattesurf,

Crazy fine.
Hope the spiders held on tightly! ;)

Re: Poll: Buy online or buy from conventional store?
 

i'll keep you guys posted on the "spiders affair" on the other original thread when i get back to the car in feb '07. :lol:

Try that over here and you loose your license (50 and over above the speed limit) for some time. The state attorny checks your record for earlier speed tickets and makes up a penalty. Most likely you will get the license back in a week or so. However, going 100% over a speedlimit? They also take your car at the spot, plus the license of course!

But we were talking shopping, is it safe to say we all do sometimes, but most don't want to talk about it? :D
Got a 300 gig maxtor drive in last week, bought online. Noticed yesterday it says "refurbished to maxtor specifications" on the label. Called the shop, they say it is normal to sell those as new. This would not have happened to me in a real shop, because I would have refused it right away. Like you lattesurf, if it is available downtown, I pay an extra 10 euro just to avoid that. Difference was 30 euro, however.

Re: Poll: Buy online or buy from conventional store?
 

I lived in Australia for 2 years and drove around the entire country in a run down 1972 Mazda 1300. I was stopped a couple of times for speeding by police there and escaped without a ticket each time.
I'll never forget the look on the police officers face after he pulled me over. I was stopped in Northern Territory. I was driving an out of state car from Victoria and I had an international Canadian drivers license. He didnt' know what to do. Why bother ticketing me since I wouldn't be around very long to pay the fine. We had a nice chat about my travels, then he let me go with a warning. If only every ticket could be that pleasant an experience.
I received a parking ticket in Perth as well while I lived there for a while. It made a nice addition to my travel journal where I taped it in for decoration! :lol:
Sorry to have gotten off topic with this story! :wink:

Re: Poll: Buy online or buy from conventional store?
 

i'm an american but i've been living in the philippines for quite a while now. i'm going with conventional stores for a couple of reasons. first, see my post in the general discussion group about my (and apparently PornoPablo's) problem with the apacer device. sometimes having a manual to read before buying can help. of course, it didn't help me cuz i didn't read closely enough...
second, has more to do with not trusting the mail system or customs here well enough to want to risk on line buying, but that's probably just a parochial concern.
sigh. you all have no idea how lucky you are to live where traffic laws (and other laws) are enforced. tickets for speeding? never heard of it here. of course traffic is usually too thick to allow it, and too many people driving on the wrong side of the street, and pedestrians turning the roads into some real life shooting gallery video game. oh dear, now you've got me started...
a couple of days ago my wife got caught for going the wrong way in a u-turn slot (it was dark and no signs). she didn't get a ticket, she had to buy the traffic cops dinner at kentucky fried chicken.
third, almost forgot, convential stores allow you to look around more to find things you wouldn't have thought you needed/wanted. well, maybe thats a vote for the internet, come to think of it.

online because here in india there are not many shops which sell mp4 players but there are a lot of indian websites which do :D

That is a good reason, but even in a crowded country like Holland it is cheaper to let the mail bring it to you for 6 euro, than drive 40 miles to a shop that just has what you want. Most shops are so fast and use online banking, ordered and payed before 16.00, and you will have the stuff at home the next day. Who wants to go out, it is 2 above 0 Celsius!

Better like stories, in Denmark you can get it returned if you dont like it, errors or fabrical damages ^^ but if i need to buy from QXL, ill had to send an email to the seller, and wait two days for every sentence i want to say to him -.-