Internet shopping 'no threat to high street'
Friday, 15 Sep 2006 12:10
Internet shopping is rapidly growing in popularity
Shops do not need to worry about the growing popularity of online shopping because the 'bricks to clicks' revolution is inherently limited in scope, a leading UK retailer has said.
Stuart Rose, chief executive of Marks & Spencer (M&S), said this morning that he rejects the notion that the internet could one day completely replace shops as the main source of revenue for retailers.
"I think as long as you've got great shops people will come in… I don't think people will ever get away from going shopping," he told the Today programme.
"We can't all go fishing, we can't all watch football all day long; what will we do if we don't go shopping? It's the biggest sport in the UK."
Despite this prediction, Mr Rose warned that those companies not offering an online shopping option to consumers would lose out.
"If you are not competitive and don't have all the channels, then you will not compete as well as somebody who has," he added.
"We used to buy perhaps the CD or we might perhaps buy the book from Amazon; but people do banking now, they do holidays now, they do insurance now, they do everything and people are much more familiar, much more comfortable and much more savvy about technology than we think they are, and that's not just old people, it's younger people," he said.
He added: "That's where we are; it's the modern world and it's moving incredibly fast."
M&S are launching a new website in conjunction with Amazon, which hopes to take advantage of the blooming popularity of online shopping.
A report published in July by research firm Mintel found that the UK had overtaken Germany as Europe's leading purchaser of retail products sold on the internet. Mintel predicted that the European market will grow by 186 per cent between 2005 and 2010.
The growth of broadband takeup is already having a tangible impact on businesses, despite Mr Rose's comments. Insurance provider Norwich Union announced yesterday that it was planning to cut 4,000 jobs because more and more of its business was coming online and so could be shifted to third-party offshore IT support centres.