ABSTRACT
Non-store shopping is not new. Traditional mail order goes back over a century. The ‘big book’ catalogues have experienced slow decline with the advent of more upmarket ‘specialogues’. Nevertheless, the tradition of selling to friends and family continues with party plans, most notably Ann Summers, and door-to-door selling through Avon and Betterware catalogues. These ‘low tech’ forms of selling have accounted for around 4-5 per cent of all retail sales in the UK and the US for many years, but this was forecast to change dramatically in the new millennium when ‘higher tech’ options would dominate the marketplace. De´ja` vu? When one of the authors of this text took over as Editor of the International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, two early features in 1990 focused upon the status of e-commerce schemes in the US and Europe. After many false dawns and dot.com collapses, Amazon.com reported a quarterly profit for the first time in 2001. A considerable shakeout of the industry has occurred since 2000, with the prospect of a more stable pattern of development occurring until 2010. This chapter will discuss growth of e-commerce, the evolving market and consumer responses to online retailing. The challenges faced by the grocery sector will be discussed in some depth, especially the ‘killer
costs’ of picking and delivering to customers’ homes. Finally, the status of the business-to-business market will be reviewed.
