If you’ve seen any of our advertising in the past few months, most notably the “You’re Not An Idiot… Right?” campaign, you’ll see a severe trend towards the price competitive end of the spectrum.

This is something that drew some criticism from the retail guys we are targeting (the poster is a Peats purchaser); namely that we’re an online shop and they’re a regular shop, and shouldn’t be making any direct comparisons in the first place.

First of all, we agree, we do need a baseline to compare ourselves against the retail guys – after all, you could call online and retail stores chalk and cheese (except for the fact that we sell the same products) given the method of interaction between consumer and (r)etailer. That’s a perfectly fair assessment.

The consumer perception in Ireland (which may be ahead in tech usage, but lags behind in online commerce) has always been that online shops remove that personal touch from shopping; online shops can be harder to pin down when you have a problem; and online shops aren’t as reliable, particularly where it comes to securing your payment details online.

A lot of consumer perception to overcome… So, in September of last year we set up our local office (having previously based operations out of Holland.)

Included in this, alongside customer service and our returns department, we have a pick up point. So, you can now place an order online and pay for your purchase in our pick up point, at a chip and pin machine, just like in retail. (And generally interact with our staff.)

So now we consider it fair game to compare ourselves to our retail competitors in all senses: If we’re selling the same products, you’re paying for them in the same way and the only difference is that you order online and wait two days for it to arrive (oh, and we’re significantly cheaper.)

The big difference between Komplett and the retail guys we compare ourselves to is the “I Want It Now” factor. Given the price differences in the examples we’ve highlighted (and if you’re shopping around for a specificproduct, you’ll find many more), we simply say “How much is having it right now worth to you?” If you need an iPod Nano 16GB Right Now, it’s fine to pay the extra €20. But should you pay €500 for a 32” LCD-TV? (€1,119 in Harvey Norman) Or even €50, €100? Up to the consumer. But no retailer can now say that Komplett is like cheese to their chalk: The same products. Paid for in-store. With human interaction. And we’re still kicking their asses on price.