What are the technological advances most affecting electronic retailing in Europe?
The internet is the single biggest technological advance of our age – and we are still only at the beginning of the adventure. Part of the process for our industry is that a lot of our customers are still getting used to the new technologies. The predominant internet user is still quite young (18-35) and the traditional catalogue or DRTV buyer is a little older than this. But they are developing and growing with the new technologies (if perhaps not quite at the same rapid rate that technology is advancing) and getting increasingly involved with internet shopping. Of course the other good news for us is the internet revolution has heralded an age of new younger home shoppers. How has Web 2.0 affected the home shopping industry? The web 2.0 concept of communities, forums, user-generated content and so on is a very interesting one, and its impact is not to be underplayed. But for DRTV it’s having a smallish impact, not a hugely significant one. (Though it’s true to say that it shows what
