Christmas Shopping 2014 - Online and In-store

Online Christmas Shopping for 2014 has been marred by a series of failures in delivery, which has given an unexpected boon to the high street. Date-wise - it is at that time of year for me, when I no longer risk shopping online - even as an Amazon Prime Member. I’ve noted this year with Amazon Prime, that with the inclusive delivery service I am getting diminishing returns. Used to be when Prime first started, I pretty much received everything the day after I ordered, now it’s often 2-3 days after order, with some of the Christmas gifts taking more than a week to arrive. I’m not exactly sure what has happened here, but mostly it’s no more than a 50:50 guarantee of next day delivery for Amazon Prime, which is a significant drop in service for me. A few years ago I had a Christmas gift or two go missing in the post from Amazon, nowadays at least they typically do turn up, but they seem to be taking significantly longer to arrive.

I pop into Central London and Westfield most weekends, and happened to be in town at one of the busiest times of year - the weekend after Black Friday. I’ve often levelled criticism at the not long recently renewed trimmer HMV at 363 Oxford Street, which - with its low ceilings and too many squeezed-in display-stands was a tight fit at the best of times. On the weekend in question, the queues on the ground floor / entry level very pretty much out the door and you were quite unable to navigate through the aisles - one of those moments which makes you run home to shop online.

From the comfort of your lounge chair, there is none of the hustle and bustle which typifies an in-store Christmas shopping experience, you do have the haunting spectre of uncertainty though - both in terms of availability and delivery. Amazon for instance has seen a huge increase in Marketplace products - many of which are now coming from the continent, so that unless you read the fine-print very carefully, you are frequently not aware where the product is coming from, both my brother and I have been caught out by this. I mentioned in an earlier blog post this year, how a significant challenge for high street retailers was the task of consolidating their online and in-store inventories, to give customers a better idea of stock availability. As a prime example of this - for the past couple of weeks nearly all the Lego Technic selection on the John Lewis site has been listed out of stock, where for most of those lines there is still stock in-store. I just happen to know that most stores prioritise in-store availability, so often the best bet in seeking out an elusive item is to search in-store for it. There is unfortunately in most cases, little indication online as to whether there is likely stock in-store - except for chains who specialise in the reservation and click-and-collect service - like Argos does. For John Lewis, click-and-collect simply delivers online stock to your nearest branch, it does not seem to tally with in-store stock - which means that often something out-of-stock online is available in-store and vice versa. For these reasons I still combine online and in-store shopping for Christmas.

I am part of a large extended family - lots of sibling, nephews and nieces - meaning my haul amounts to 23 presents that need to be sourced, wrapped and delivered- roughly half of them to Iceland. I make significant use of the online gift wrapping services of Amazon and John Lewis, who happen to be my best help at Christmas. Family in Iceland often avails itself of Amazon in the UK to deliver gifts to the UK-based family members. Alas there is no Amazon or John Lewis in Iceland, and with a pricing disparity and lesser selection of goods, it still makes more sense to shop in the UK and mail / courier to Iceland - for my purposes at least.

When shopping online for Christmas, John Lewis is one of the few companies that handles the experience properly - having a dedicated Christmas navigation:

Gifts by Recipient:

• For Her
• For Him
• For Couples
• Gifts for Teenage Girls
• Gifts for Teenage Boys
• For Girls
• For Boys
• For Babies
• For Grandparents
• For New Parents

Gift Ideas

Gift Wrap & Cards

Home for Christmas etc.

The all important budget selector also exists to a degree:

• Top Gift Ideas
• Under £20
• £20 to £50
• Over £50
• etc.

I would like to be able to specify a more precise budget range - as befits my own particular needs, but other than that, this is a really well thought-out service which all online retailers should really offer.

Amazon still has the best checkout experience, although at this time of year, when you select a different address to your home address, you should really get pop-up alerts for options on gift-wrap and tag labels. It is not particularly straight-forward on either checkout to select gift-wrap for your recent purchase.

The benefit of online is that those online stores (in my case Amazon and John Lewis) do all the heavy lifting for you - delivering the gifts directly to the doorstep of the intended recipient. Used to be that you had to spend a long time in the queue at the post office, or else burdened down with huge carrier bags when going away at Christmas. Nowadays I just try to send everything ahead so that I don’t get weighed down by extra luggage on the train / plane.

This Christmas has been typified by a significant amount of Lego, which I am pretty sure will be this Christmas’s main seller, alongside dolls and other merchandising from the Frozen film franchise. I have two gifts remaining to source - both items of clothing, which frankly are best procured by the intended recipients and I reimburse them for their efforts. Buying clothes has been a pet hate of mine - particularly for my rapidly growing nieces and nephews who even over the Christmas period shoot up in size and exceed the physical limits of their pre-Christmas specifications!

This Christmas I would like you all to spare a thought for my niece Katla in Iceland, who does not benefit from a local Amazon or John Lewis. She has some how ended up being tasked with buying and wrapping Christmas presents on-behalf of various close family members, making her Christmas tally a grand total of 54!!! My own target of 23 does not seem so bad any more ...