Who needs the high street when we have the internet?

A report this week suggested that high street sales are down for the Christmas period. The contributing factors seem to be peoples’ lack of money due to the recession, but also that people are choosing to shop online rather than go out to the shops.

From what other people have told me, shops certainly do seem to be quieter than in previous years, without the mass crowds that usually arrive in town first thing in the morning, only leaving when the shops close.

But really, now we have the internet, do we need to go into the shops at all? And if we do choose to go into the shops, there are so many comparison sites out there that it’s easy to go into the shops, have a look at the physical product you want to buy, and with the latest and greatest barcode scanning app available on any Smartphone, have a quick look to see where it’s cheapest online, and go home and order it, and have it delivered to your door.

Of course one of the drawbacks to ordering presents on the internet is the fact that you are still not guaranteed a delivery time, so it is possible that your presents will be delivered while you are out, thus forcing you to go and collect them or arrange redelivery. Or the possibility that there will be a delay due to excessive orders/bad weather, and you then being faced with the possibility that the much-wanted presents won’t arrive on time, and the shops being sold out by the time you realize that you have nothing for anyone to open on Christmas day.

But if you are organized enough it is certainly possible to avoid actually going to a shop over the Christmas period. Even food shopping needn’t be a chore as most of the online grocery delivery companies made their Christmas delivery slots available from the beginning of November.

Of course, not actually leaving the house in order to do Christmas does mean you miss out on the festive atmosphere in the shops, and having everything arrive on your doorstep does make it feel a little bit less Christmassy, But there’s something to be said for convenience.