Blighty internet shopping goes ballistic
As young women become dominant UK online group. Coincidence?
Posted in Management, 18th May 2007 10:08 GMT
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UK shoppers are abandoning the high street and going online in droves, according to the latest figures from the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG), the industry body.
April net sales were up a thumping 55 per cent on last year at £3.47bn, taking the total web-receipts count since 1995 into 12 figures. The IMRG numbers people reckon that annual sales will hit £42bn this year, and fully £78bn (20 per cent of all retail sales) by 2010. They say many sellers have yet to move online, giving the sector plenty of room to grow.
Naturally enough, the spread of broadband is seen as having driven the internet shopping revolution. Typical home net connections are now always-on and better than 1Mbit/sec, compared to the rickety 14.4kbit dial-up of yesteryear.
Traditional online staples such as travel and electrical goods continue to stand high in the ratings, but other sectors are developing fast. Many consumers who would previously only buy cheaper items like books and CDs via the internet have become comfortable with purchasing white goods and furniture this way. Others were already more than willing to make big-ticket buys like new computers using their existing machines.
In particular, the natural tendency for gadget lovers to buy online has caused some heartache for the high-street providers. Notably, Dixons has decided to pull out of the town centres and focus on internet sales.
Meanwhile, less obvious categories such as clothes, accessories, and shoes are expanding rapidly, according to the IMRG. This trend could be related to the revelation (pdf) this week by Nielsen/NetRatings that the dominant group of UK residents on the internet is now women aged 18-34, rather than the more normal model of socially-challenged young men.
No doubt the geeks are still there, but as the internet has moved into mainstream society it appears they are now outnumbered online by young women lusting for shoes, handbags, and gladrags. That said, the NetRatings data is tricky to reconcile with that from the IMRG, as it appears that the ladies-who-surf typically favour parenting sites rather than ones offering cut price Manolo Blahniks.
It may be that the online surge by women of childbearing age has more to do with maternity leave than it does with 360-degree Flash shoe porn. ®
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COMMENTS
How the heck...
How can you POSSIBLY buy clothes online? Yeah, the whole "sizes" thing works great in concept, but for anything more complicated than a t-shirt or underwear, you quite simply can't tell what you're getting into. Hell, depending on the manufacturer, line, and probably person stitching the f'ing thing together, the "right size" could be anything from 36 to 46.
And then there's the whole issue of being able to gauge such things as "comfort," or have our governments finally been able to convince us that being comfortable is not best for us?
It amazes me...
That the stupidity of some women still allows them to follow a long forgotten instinct, and in fact accentuate that instinct by making it the sole focus of their existence.
I am of course talking about gathering. In the old, old, old days, women did the gathering, you know berries, spuds, and alike, while the men did the hunting deer, antelope, you get the idea.
So although I'm not criticising women for following the instinct of gathering, and only certain women have lost the plot, I am certainly going to criticise them for GATHERING SHOES!!!!
The latent instinct now carries no necessity in our existence, men still do to some degree hunt, this is illustrated in the shopping habits of the earth bound male, a quick in and out, got what I wanted, end of.
No need to browse.
No need to seek the opinion, of the over opinionated shop attendant
It seems it has become socially acceptable in modern years for women to rack up credit card bills equal to the US national debt on shoes, handbags etc... then get it written off with an IVA stating "I was too stupid to stop spending".
What a world we live in.
We could of course send them all hops picking (could become a punishment for those women with shoe related IVA's), they actually get the exact same satisfaction out of picking fruit as they do picking shoes, however, hops is a far more important resource than shoes...
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