People Getting Bored with Online Shopping

It seems like I do all my shopping online these days, seriously: A friend recently made fun of me for buying a roll of insulation online. I responded that it was the bubble-filled metallic kind, which wasn't stocked at Home Depot.

On the other hand, I no longer do grocery shopping online, I no longer buy necessities from Drugstore.com, I feel like I spend every other weekend at Home Depot buying spackle and paint, and I even went to a real clothing store a few months ago to purchase a pair of pants.

Are the times a-changin' for the double-digit growth of online retailers that we've become accustomed to? Though annual growth hit 25 percent in 2004, it's projected to hit just 16 percent and continue sliding for the foreseeable future.

Is the heyday over for online shopping? It certainly seems that way. There's just not much of a supply of new customers any more who have yet to jump online and experience Amazon.com, and overall online sales have gotten so high ($116 billion) that there's not much room for them to continue upward at their historical pace.

But the big news is that consumers just seem to be bored with online shopping. Offline competitors haven't exactly been sitting on their duffs, either. Many retail shops have refreshed their images and made the environments more enticing to offline shoppers. (Even Dell is getting into the game.) Seems to be working.

So, dear readers, are you doing more shopping online or off these days, and why?

By the way: Sorry if I'm only just now covering some older stories, but I"m playing catch-up in the wake of the iPhone. Better late than never, right?

LINK: Online Sales Lose Steam