The Ruddington.org online shopping guide aims to make your experience of purchasing goods and services on the internet easier, quicker and cheaper.

We have carefully selected over eighty businesses who trade online to showcase on the site. Some, such as John Lewis, Alders and Tesco, offer online ordering from long established high street stores. Others, such as Charles Tyrwhitt and The Cotswold Company, are highly successful mail order businesses which have added equally successful online operations. The remainder, for example Amazon and The Ink Factory, trade solely on the internet. All have been selected because they offer easily navigable sites, reliable service, secure ordering systems and reasonable delivery terms. Furthermore, they are well established, sizeable businesses which should remain solvent between accepting your order and delivering your goods.

The site offers two different ways of finding a retailer. The shop index categorises the stores according to the products they sell. The index contains, for example, a category for 'Food and Drink', which has sub-categories for 'Supermarkets', 'Specialist Food Retailers', 'Wine Merchants' and 'Gifts'. The A-Z listing gives a brief description of each store and what they sell, arranged in alphabetical order.

If you are already an experienced internet user and/or online shopper, Happy Shopping! If, however, you are unsure about any aspects of online shopping, you might wish to visit our 'Shopping Guidance' page before venturing into one of the stores. This page offers a step by step guide to online shopping and useful advice about security and your legal rights.

Who Benefits
Shopping on the internet offers the advantages of convenience, choice and competitive pricing to everyone. To some sections of the population - the disabled, those living in isolated rural areas, the elderly and immobile, - it is not simply another way to shop, it is the only practical way to shop. Our commitment doesn't end with producing this guide, as residents of Ruddington and the surrounding area have access the Community Computer Centre where volunteers are available to assist people with online shopping and a host of other computer related matters.

However, our aims in setting up the shopping guide were not solely altruistic. Many of the shops featured operate affiliate programmes, which means that each time you shop through this site a small amount of the money you spend is rebated to the Ruddington IT Association (RITA), which is used to pay the running costs of this website, to support the running costs of the Ruddington Community Computer Centre and to fund new projects. RITA is run entirely by volunteers who receive no pay or expenses for the work they undertake. Furthermore, the shopper receives exactly the same prices and service as dealing direct with the store and we receive no information about who has shopped using this site, how much an individual has spent or the items that have been purchased. We simply receive a BACS payment each month based on the total spend via the website.

Disloyalty Points
Ruddington.org acknowledges it has a role supporting local shops and the local economy - indeed we run a sister site, Ruddington.com, which does precisely this. However, even the most ardent supporter of local shops would agree that there are large gaps in the product range they are able to offer. A male relying entirely on Ruddington's shops would wander the streets barefoot and naked, but have access to an excellent greengrocer, butchers, bakers and ironmongers. It is principally the gaps in the market which we aim to plug with this online shopping guide. Please use it, but also continue to support local shops in the area.

 

Ruddington Art & Poetry | Poets' Corner | Ruddington Village Website
A-Z Shop Listing | Shops by Category | Online Shopping Guide

Copyright © Ruddington IT Assocaition 2003-2005
Site design by Patrick Winstanley

Site updated July 8, 2004