The ‘New Way’ of Shopping: Farmers Trading Company Catalogues 1909 – 1938.
Abstract
In August this year Australasian retailers were informed of an approaching “Death Star”1. The American online retail giant Amazon announced plans to open its first major Australian warehouse, what it called a ‘fulfillment centre’, in suburban Melbourne. In New Zealand retailers were reported as being “spooked by the ‘Amazon Effect’” according to researchers at Massey University2 who found that business confidence had fallen since 2016 and the global online retailer was being cited as the main reason for uncertainty. With the opening of the Australian warehouse it was estimated that Amazon could build a business with annual sales of $915 million in this country in just five years.3 Over a century ago the New Zealand retail industry was shaken by another 'retail revolution', the mail order catalogue.
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Copyright (c) 2017 Rosemary Brewer, Alan Cocker
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