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Distinctive, stylish furniture by contemporary designers disappear from high streets.
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Are we forced to buy from multiple retailers with branches in every major UK town.
Countless jokes and comedy sketches have been based on customers and sales people in high street furnishers. To those real-life furniture shoppers it is no joke. We seem to be dominated by multiple furniture retailers with branches in every town, and being dragged from one home furnisher to the next is not funny - especially when it all begins to look the same, and then the purchase is made at the very first furniture shop that was visited. We are also plagued by the perpetual sale stores who lead us to believe that this really is a genuine furniture sale! This is compounded by the migration of furniture shops from the high street to retail parks.There are reputable online furniture stores with genuine sales.
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If you are among the frustrated many who feel that quality, distinctive, stylish furniture is disappearing from the high streets - hang in there! Cabinet Maker - the magazine for the UK furniture trade said;
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Okay, it confirms that there is little synergy between retailers and manufacturers but although 'some' retailers have complained that "some manufacturers are not meeting the needs of their customers" ... what are the retailers doing about it - other than complaining?
It is difficult to believe that a serious furniture retailer will sit and wait for a manufacturer to change their ranges from conservative to contemporary, or dull to designer. Then what of designers? There are some very creative furniture designers out there, but what does it take for a retailer, designer or manufacturer to get together? Not everybody wants to trawl retail parks and high street furniture shops. The worldwide web is a shopping mall in itself - and online sales are booming, particularly in the UK. |
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Picture Courtesy of www.furniturewebstore.co.uk |
Forrester Research conducted a survey showing for the very first time that UK consumers have spent more than £1bn ($1.6bn) in just one month shopping online and sales have doubled over the past year. The survey found that the growth in internet shopping is running at 15 times faster than normal retail sales. Almost half the homes in Britain have internet access and many browse online at work - so why would we want to trawl those high street furniture shops? ... especially when new switched-on e-retailers are providing affordable contemporary furniture and accessories online.
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For many UK shoppers , the biggest worry about online shopping has been security. Is it safe to enter your credit card details online?. It is probably safer than handing your card over to a waiter in a restaurant! (not that all waiters would copy your card details). Without getting too technical, there is generally a third party between you and the online store. When a shopper keys in the credit card details and clicks the button, their details are not sent straight away. What actually happens is that a secure link is set up between the shopper's browser and a secure browser, then an encryption code is requested and received, which then wraps (converts to code) the order and transaction details before leaving the shoppers premises. |
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It may be that the address will change from the online shop such as www.furniturewebstore.co.uk to an order centre such as http://www.ordercentre.net/.
You will see a picture of a locked padlock and the address bar where you normally type in the website address may change to another site such as https://www.secpay.com/. Ensure the first four letters are https (s stands for secure). This may not happen until the point where it asks for your credit card details. Never leave this information until it shoes https.
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News Release By
Peter Yexley
Tel: 01707 646457 |
