This morning IBM launched their Retail Therapy report where they looked at the state of online shopping around the world.
One interesting aspect to the report is that Australians seem to have become indifferent to stores with 60% of the 2000 respondents claiming they were ‘apathetic’ towards their choice of retailers.
At least this is an improvement on the 2011 report where 46% of those survey said they were ‘antagonistic’, this year that proportion is a mere 5%.
So, have we gone from hating our retailers to simply not caring any more? The answers should be focusing the minds of Australian CEOs if they are hoping for consumers to reopen their wallets.
Image of a bored girl by ChristieM through sxc.hu
AUSTRALIA IS A DIGITALLY BACKWARD & AN UNDER-DEVELOPED COUNTRY and it’s also in a mess!!! Who owns Australia truly? Australian properties,land & even brands owned by Chinese, Americans, Britishers- Sources under http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3816204.html or http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-news/australia-is-the-great-foreign-owned-land-as-more-nsw-farms-being-sold-overseas/story-e6freuzi-1226281573668 or other articles under Google. Why? Because for decades, not diversified & has been dependent on 1 sector-mining last 20 years or so & before that agriculture & so on. So, Britain, US, China rule Australia.
Australian issues:
Australian manufacturing is dead let alone the local car makers. Reason-innovation (that’s reality including Australian economy being in doldrums as for decades it’s been putting all its eggs into 1 basket-before mining, agriculture too) (GE Research 2012-Australia not innovative country though has some innovations). IS IT TIME FOR AUSTRALIA TO SHIFT FROM NICHE STRATEGY TO DIVERSIFICATION? It’s top export sectors including 3rd largest-universities depend on foreigners especially Asians especially Chinese. Its innovation & tech have failed time & again and are outdated too. Tech side came late for online retail-online retail & transportation payment systems are still 10 years behind. Telecom sector backward. The best ISPs which aren’t amongst the telecom providers backward. Tech failures include Click Frenzy. Social media failures including statistics-Fifth Quadrant Report. Innovation failure-GE Research 2012. (Two Aussie debt clocks)Huge debts (not public but private) for both business & personal includes not just mortgages but credit card debts too. $5 trillion debts where each individual has about $19000 or so debts & GDP worth $1.3 trillion or so. Australian population represents 0.3% of world population & just 25% have uni qualifications (ABS). Public debts & deficits rising & Australian economy is headed for same fate as Europe because it has been dependent ON PUTTING ALL ITS EGGS IN 1 BASKET THAT IT HAS FORGOTTEN TO DIVERSIFY.
It’s not just cost, it’s quality, cultural & other factors too. If it were just cost, why aren’t most of the tech/manufacturing jobs sent to Vietnam? Chinese labour costs are rising but Vietnam doesn’t have all the manufacturing even though its labour is way cheap. I do agree with expense reductions + also fact of getting loans & Australia has huge private debts-business & personal (not just mortgages, credit card debts too).
Few of the articles in recent times- http://media.smh.com.au/news/national-news/grattan-institute-warns-high-deficit-looming-4212626.html – Australia is in a mess. It was in a two-speed economy but now the suggestion is three-speed economy – http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-22/gap-between-best-and-worst-state-economies-widens/4639870- these 2 articles came out in last month. And last few days, 3 articles – http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-14/australia-shuns-europe-style-cuts-as-swan-bets-on-jobs-election.html & http://www.cnbc.com/id/100737488 & http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/miners-are-not-atms-gina-rinehart-warns-in-video-speech/story-e6frg8zx-1226644995286.
MOST SECTORS DEAD/DYING OFF (recession). EVEN MINING’S SLOWING DOWN. MANUFACTURING DEAD. US manufacturing also died 30 years ago but revived 10 years later via innovation. Australian innovation way behind. US manufacturing shifted towards the high-end value. That video can be seen under http://www.pbs.org/america-revealed/episode/4/ . US MANUFACTURING is PROFITABLE NOW though the manufacturing industry has shifted towards more of robotics. AUSTRALIAN MANUFACTURING dead for now. SAME GOES WITH OTHER AUSSIE INDUSTRIES-NOT MUCH INNOVATION.