The nature of online sales means that shoppers must wait for their goods to be delivered. This is the primary reason that analysts believe that online shopping slowed in December versus November. Most people buying Christmas presents would of ordered online early so that it would arrive in time for Christmas.

Although their was a drop in online sales from November to December, it still was a good result compared to bricks and mortar retail sales. The growth in November of online sales was twenty seven percent. This dropped to twenty three percent in December.

In terms of dollars, Australians splashed out almost $13 billion during 2012. This equated to approximately 5.8 percent of overall retail sales meaning there is a long way to go before online sales makes a real dent on retail figures.

The writing is on the wall however, that bricks and mortar stores need to do more to win back shoppers from online retailers. Stores like Clearly Contacts have been able to win over consumers by offering not only sales, but incentives like a Clearly Contacts coupon which encourages people to purchase online.

During the current economic environment, The massive surf wear company, Billabong, is experiencing extremely tough trading conditions and as a result, reported an earnings downgrade which sent it’s share price down dramatically.

Surfstitch on the other hand, is relatively small online only surfing retailer that has grown from strength to strength and is challenging it’s competitor on it’s home turf. In fact, Surfstitch has grown by double over the last 3 months and things don’t look like slowing down for the company.

The move of the Australian consumer to buy online more has been helping Surfstitch grow as strong as it has. Another reason is that Surfstitch offers many more brands and goods than a traditional bricks and mortar store offers. The store offers over 250 brands and next day delivery to many parts of the country.

The store was founded 3 years ago and has grown to the point where they now get 50,000 visits a day. There popularity has also been due to the fact that they frequently have a Surfstitch promo code.

It seemed not long ago that Google introduced their wearable glasses with a HUD called Google Glass. This device generated a lot of excitement as it was a piece of equipment that was able to feed you real time intelligent information such as weather, locations, people information etc.

Some exciting information has now been released by researchers at Gent University’s Centre of Microsystems Technology. The University has announced that it has created an curved LCD that is able to be embedded into contact lens making it possible for information to be passed directly to the eyes without the need for glasses.

The technology behind the contact lens coming from Gent University allows them to use the entire surface of the lens as the LCD. This means that they can fit more information onto the unit making it more realistic for use.

This is an exciting development. I wonder if we can get a Clearly coupon that will allow us to purchase one of these cheap!