Remember the old way of shopping?

So, we're in a recession, yup, even in Canada now... (they just officially announced it on the news today).

We all saw it coming. Nobody wanted to say the dreaded "R" word, but heck, you can call what ever you want, in the end, we're here and I can't help but to think back in history and see that this is a natural cycle.

Those cycles are needed, as it weeds out the wheat from the shaft, and without it, we just get more and more crowded. If we keep having these big huge bubbles squeezing in all the time, eventually, they can only do one thing: Pop! So the more bubbles blowing at the same time, the more crowded we get - which is not healthy either. We need to clean up and start fresh once in awhile.

I see what is happening as a way to do that. A way to stop and look at how we're doing things. Streamline, be more creative with our resources, be less wasteful of our time and supplies, etc.
I don't know if any of you are old enough, but think back when you were younger (I'm 43) and I remember when I was a very young girl, we didn't own a car and the few stores we had were far away from where we lived.

So, my mom used to do a lot of her shopping by catalogue because we didn't have any big stores nearby, since not every company had stores in every city back then (it was just too expensive to have stores everywhere - maybe the big retail business of today needs to learn from this)...
Well, I see online shopping as the New Age of catalogue shopping of the old days!

People didn't have easy access to stores 40-50 years ago, so they shopped by catalogue and their purchases were delivered to them by mail or they picked it up at a local counter.
I think that the current economic crisis is going to make us sort of go back to this and those were great times! I don't know about you, but I much prefer to shop from the comfort of my home, in my jammies and slippers, drinking a nice cup of tea, than having to drive out and waste a bunch of time on crowded roads, crowded parking lots and crowded malls!

With the Internet, we have our 'catalogues' online (unlike the old days, there is no printing costs, no catalogue mailing/distribution costs) and people worldwide can purchase our creations and get their purchase delivered straight to their homes no matter where they live.

And you don't have to have the Internet at home. There's libraries and Internet Cafés where you can pop in, pick up a few books to read for the week, get online and do your shopping then go back at home.

As online sellers, I think this will actually play in our favor down the line, *if* we pay attention to what consumers are looking for, and if we offer top-notch friendly customer service. It also helps to have good clear attractive pictures to present our products in the best light possible... remember, first impressions count!

I think that what is going on at the moment is going to help push even more customers to turn to online shopping. Big companies will not be able to keep on paying for high rents in commercial shopping centers (hugely expensive) and they are going to scale down their operations and most likely shut down some of their retail branches.

Online sellers have a big advantage over Brick & Mortar stores as we don't have their huge overheads, and over the next couple of years, this will be extremely important. I won't be surprised to see more of those big companies develop their online shopping experience even more in order to direct their clientele to shop online instead of in their B&M stores.

So, what are you going to do about it? :-)