Internet shopping might be booming, and according to IMRG - its grown 2000% in the last five years, but if you are planning to buy goods over the net this Christmas, you’d better watch out. According to John Clare, Chief Executive of DSL, the company formerly known as Dixons, a lot of bargain hunters who buy goods over the net will be left with nothing, as a plethora of internet shopping firms go under. “It is going to be the weaker, medium-sized and smaller players that are vulnerable. I would be wary of buying from small independent operators,” he said. “You don’t know who they are, or even if you are going to get the product.”
Yet on the same day the Dixons boss was trying to persuade us to buy from companies you have already heard of, such as, well Dixons, - don’t forget PC WorLd is currently heavily promoting its web site - IMRG came out with its most bullish figures yet on the size of the Internet shopping market.
IMRG reckons that if all the companies who sell goods over the net were bricks and mortar shops, they would form a High Street 56 miles long. IMRG said yesterday “Twenty four million British shoppers will spend £5 billion online this Christmas, an average of £208 each, generating 130 million internet shopping deliveries.” And that constitutes a growth rate which is 130 times faster than the High Street.
The IMRG index, launched in 2000 with a weighted score of 100, passed 20000 last month, with clothing sales up 27% on the year. Electricals up 28% and beer/wine/spirits sales up 50%.
IMRG reckons that the new generation of electronic toys - iPods, mobile phones (such as the new O2 iMode product) and games consoles will be among their most popular products.
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