(This is the Online column, written for The Southland Times)
I’m thinking about becoming a hermit.
I quite like my own company, the house is warm and cosy and the cat doesn’t mind me being around so long as I remember to restock his food bowl on a regular basis.
With online shopping and online banking, I might never have to leave the house again.
Let’s see, I can order my weekly groceries via Woolworths or Foodtown. I’ve actually used Woolworths a few times and it’s a piece of cake. The only downside to buying food online is that I can’t order meat because, according to the nice customer-service chick, our couriers here in the sunny south don’t have properly refrigerated vans.
At least I can buy a couple of bottles of wine with my weekly groceries. Are you listening ILT? I can pay all my bills online — power, phone and so on.
And I’d feel a whole lot more comfortable about that if the banks would actually take online security a lot more seriously. We’ve all heard the horror stories about people losing money to hackers, we’ve all heard how a simple two-stage authentication process would make us safe. Are you listening banks?
Online auction sites like Trade Me have opened up a world of possibilities for buyers and sellers alike. However, there are also sites such as Christchurch-based Long Island, which sells clothing for women. The company’s size range goes from 10 to 30 and the styles take in casual, evening and everything in between.
This is another company I’ve bought from in the past and I can vouch for the quality of the clothes.
However, it’s the level of customer service that has made me a repeat customer and that’s something that online businesses seem to excel at.
Now I just have to find hire-a-housekeeper.com.