It will come as no surprise to learn that Internet shopping boomed this Christmas. Anecdotal evidence from the High Street had made this obvious. Even so, the latest statistics from IMRG made startling reading.
In its latest report, IMRG says that in the ten weeks to Christmas shoppers spent £4.98bn over the net, compared to £3.33bn in the same period last year.
The IMRG index hit 2,602 in December. To put this in context, the index was launched in April 2000 with a score of 100. So that’s 2,600% growth in less than six years.
And the growth is set to continue, with IMRG predicting internet shopping growth of 36% in 2006.
IMRG’s CEO, James Roper, said: “A surprising number of goods are still either hard to find or unavailable online. Large gaps exist in the supply market, such as high-end fashion and real estate. Even leading retailers often only make a small proportion of their total inventory available online, and many don’t bother with spares at all. So huge growth potential remains for the merchants who plug these holes.”
Cast your mind back to April 2000 when the IMRG index was launched. Dotcoms had become a dirty word, with investors turning away internet start ups with gay abandon.
We have argued previously, that thanks to the internet shopping boom, internet advertising is changing too, and that there is a new rationale for advertising which did not previously exist. The three Ps of successful retailers were once said to be position, position and position. But for the e-retailer, position on the net is what matters, and that comes from advertising. For such a company then advertising should replace rent in the balance sheet.
From an accountancy point of view, this might be nonsensical, but from a practical point of view, internet advertising, or to make the semantics right, internet promotion, is perhaps the only P that matters.
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