AT LEAST ONE COMPANY that handles online shopping purchases is reporting growth in consumers’ habits despite the state of the economy.
And a director of Aeropost Barbados, David Howard, said in an interview with BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY that they have gone from moving 800 packages a month back when his team took over seven years ago to moving that volume in two days.
Also, due to the high demand the company has increased its staff to 30, operates day and night, six days a week and has three locations instead of one. The director said they were also “looking to increase” the business.
“Aeropost has been in Barbados for a while but we actually took it over in April 2009 . . . [and] for those first few months we moved 800 packages for that month. In April 2016, we might move 800 packages in two days. We see a 30 per cent increase year over year in terms of volume, even in this economy. The slowest months we normally have I would say the first quarter but this year our slowest month is as strong as December of 2014,” he said.
“More Barbadians are using our services and compared to two years ago, I would say we’re getting an increasing volume because they now realise they can go online, search for the item, purchase it even if its dutiable, pay the duty and still have it at a better cost than going into ‘Town and purchasing the item and that is almost everything.”
He added: “We have peak seasons and one of them is back-to-school. We find that every year more and more people going online to purchase school bags and school shoes, a few stationery items, but its predominately shoes and bags.
“Christmas is the other peak season and it starts from November, going into Black Friday. We see increasing volumes year after year. We find there are some customers that would purchase items every week or every month but there are some people that are seasonal shoppers and they would only buy things at Christmas time,” he said.
The Latin American company is based in Miami and Barbados is one of its gateways. It is a free service with no annual fee, licence or sign-up fees. (GBM)
