{"id":232,"date":"2023-11-30T16:41:20","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T16:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thestar.test\/2023\/11\/30\/online-sales-ease-trade-slump\/"},"modified":"2023-12-02T18:45:29","modified_gmt":"2023-12-02T18:45:29","slug":"online-sales-ease-trade-slump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/blog\/online-sales-ease-trade-slump\/","title":{"rendered":"Online sales ease trade slump"},"content":{"rendered":"
\t\t\t\tTuesday, August 5th, 2014<\/span> | Posted by Sarah Vella<\/a><\/span> \t\t\t<\/div>\n

\t\t\t \t\t\t<\/p>\n

Online sales ease trade slump<\/h1>\n

LEONGATHA businesses are turning to online retailing to not only make a buck, but also remain open.
More and more retailers are opening online stores to extend their customer base and increase revenue during hard economic times.
Great Southern Outdoors has sold more than 10,000 items in the past six years alone through internet shopping hub eBay.
Store proprietor Graeme O\u2019Connor said, \u201cWithout it, I would have had to close the business a long time ago.
\u201cMore people in Leongatha are spending money online so we have to get more dollars from elsewhere to pay our bills.
\u201cPeople need to realise it\u2019s pretty tough for retailers in Leongatha at the moment. There is more empty floorspace in Bair Street than there is full.\u201d
His eBay store lists more than 2500 items for sale, with clothing the biggest sellers, and travel pillows, snake bite kits and fox whistles also popular.
Mr O\u2019Connor has even sold liquid chalk \u2013 usually used by arborists and horse riders to increase grip \u2013 to people enjoying pole dancing for fitness.
Surprisingly, people living in Leongatha, Inverloch, Wonthaggi and Foster have bought goods from the store online, despite the shop being in Leongatha.
\u201cThere are different reasons why people shop online. For some people, it\u2019s solely about price and for some people it\u2019s purely convenience. They\u2019re time poor. Some people just hate shopping,\u201d Mr O\u2019Connor said.
He not only operates an eBay store but also a stand alone website that also services sister shop, Great Southern Saddlery, also in Leongatha.
Goods have been sold to Tasmania and even remote mining communities like Newman in Western Australia.
\u201cMost of it is sold to country towns like Leongatha. You name a town and there\u2019s a fair chance I\u2019ve sent something there,\u201d Mr O\u2019Connor said.
Online sales have generated more work, requiring overnight orders to be checked every morning and also product queries to be answered.
\u201cIt\u2019s not easy money. There\u2019s a lot of work in processing an order. Cost wise, about 10 per cent of a sale goes to eBay and Pay Pay (money transfer service), so you are not just selling an item. There are expenses that go with it as well,\u201d Mr O\u2019Connor said.
Marriott\u2019s Motorcycles and Power Equipment in Leongatha has been selling goods online for three years.
The business has shipped goods \u2013 including motorcycles \u2013 around Australia and now has hundreds of spare parts available to customers, regardless of where they live.
Marriott\u2019s Jim Welsh said the website allows the business\u2019 sales on bikes to reach further afield and customers can order spare parts.
\u201cCustomers are able to go to the website and look up the items they require and order them, so there is a customer expectation for it,\u201d he said.
While online sales are a small part of the overall business, that department is expanding, Mr Welsh said.
\u201cWe are putting on more listings for all makes and models,\u201d he said.
Phone Rite does not have an online store but uses social media site Facebook to promote specials to customers and to reach new customers.
The business sells accessories for mobile phones, smartphones and tablets, and repairs iPads and iPhones.
Proprietor Anthony Walls said, \u201cFacebook is becoming a really big network. For businesses, it is pretty good.<\/p>\n

\"Way<\/a><\/p>\n

Way of future: Graeme O\u2019Connor of Great Southern Outdoors, Leongatha, prepares to send another online order.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Short URL<\/strong>: \/?p=11679<\/small><\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPosted by Sarah Vella<\/a> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\ton Aug 5 2014. Filed under Business<\/a>, Featured<\/a>, News<\/a>. \t\t\t\t\tYou can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0<\/a>. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYou can leave a response or trackback to this entry\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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Tuesday, August 5th, 2014 | Posted by Sarah Vella Online sales ease trade slump LEONGATHA businesses are turning to online retailing to not only make a buck, but also remain open. More and more retailers are opening online stores to extend their customer base and increase revenue during hard economic times. Great Southern Outdoors has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16039,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions\/16039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}