FutureConsumer.Com: The Webolution of Shopping to 2010
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
WHAT's NEW in the UPDATED 2nd EDITION (TradePaper Version)?
Despite the dot-com shakeout and economic slowdown (both of which were anticipated in the first edition), the basic thrust of the book has not changed one iota. The book's structure and layout also is unchanged.
However, the first edition was completed in early 2000 and so we have another 18 months of online shopping under our belt. As predicted, some things are selling better than others; the author has re-run the forecasts to 2010 for all product categories and made some modest changes here and there.
In terms of total online shopping by 2010, the first edition forecast that 31 percent of all retail sales would be made online by then. The new forecast comes out at 29.5 percent, so not much has changed there. Indeed, e-shopping is picking up steam and will ramp up rapidly as the economy rebounds.
The original text basically stands unchanged. Despite the first, rocky phase of the Webolution, none of it needed rewriting to any significant degree. But it has been updated in important ways:
• The Introduction is all brand new material. It explains the Nasdaq “bubble” and the dot-com shakeout, and shows how and why the Webolution nevertheless continues unabated. In doing so, the Introduction critiques an article by Harvard strategy guru Michael Porter, who wrongheadedly tries to argue that the Internet changes nothing. He couldn't be more wrong! And the ongoing Webolution will prove it. Indeed, the next phase of the Internet will see it become a HyperWeb that will turn retailing on its head.
• The beginning chapters contain new and vital information. This includes fast-changing topics such as m-commerce, plus fresh online shopper demographic and webographic trend data.
• All 12 product category chapters have been updated. Many new paragraphs of essential information have been added to reflect and explain three important types of change: - how some companies have changed their online offerings or e-tail strategies; - how evolving Web technologies are changing the marketing of some products; - how some “dot-coms” became “dot-bombs,” and the lessons to be learned.
• The final section on e-Marketing Strategy is unchanged. As argued in the critique of Michael Porter's view of the Internet in the Introduction, the strategies presented in the first edition are solid, future-proof, and right in line with where the HyperWeb is heading.
• The lists of “Which Web Sites Will Win” in various categories have been reconsidered and sometimes modified. The author also has slightly modified the “Top 50” list of biggest retail Web sites in 2010. The list in the first edition deliberately did not include many dot-coms because the author believed few would ever achieve sufficient volume to make that list, even if they survived. Even then, two that did make the list have closed down (eToys and Petopia), and one of “The Big 5” (Webvan) went bankrupt and has been replaced on that list.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
From the Publisher
EXTRACT from the PREFACE to the Updated 2nd Edition (Tradepaper Version)
Forget the “dot-com shakeout” and the Nasdaq meltdown of 2000. Every seven seconds somebody new buys something online for the first time. The Internet Revolution, or “Webolution,” rolls inexorably onward and e-commerce will soon rebound stronger than ever. Online shopping is gathering strength and the dot-com shakeout will ultimately be seen as a small hiccup.
By 2010, the Internet will gobble up 30 percent of retail spending, leaving most brick-and-mortar retailers in rubble. All but the most savvy will get killed. Most strip malls and many shopping malls, along with half the department stores, supermarkets, retail chains, banks, and local shops, will vanish without a trace as click-and-buy e-tailing takes over.
The head-spinning Webolution is not easy to forecast. However, before it's done - around 2018 - it will reverse and unwind virtually everything that the Industrial Revolution put into place. It will smash the mass consumption economy to smithereens and re-center it on the home.
The Webolution is so big that few yet grasp its significance. Since the dot-com shakeout, there have been many silly Web obituaries. Doubtless, the plodding plowman didn't “get it” when the first steam train puffed past his field. So it is with many journalists and economists today when they dismiss the Web.
But this Webolution will rock the world, again utterly transforming life and commerce. And the rewards will accrue fastest to those who embrace it first. Online sales will kick in big time in the years 2002-2005, and grow rapidly throughout the decade to top $1 trillion by 2010. By then, the Web will be a hundred times bigger than today - a tidal wave HyperWeb that will drown those who can't or won't surf.
The Internet is fast becoming a shopper's paradise. It is changing not only how people buy, but how often, when, what, why, and from where. By 2010, a majority of Americans will live what Bill Gates calls a “Web Lifestyle” and will do at least some e-shopping. Most of them will do most of their shopping online.
Where will people buy? Whether or not pure e-tail Web sites such as Amazon.com will still be a favorite of online shoppers in 2010 is an intriguing question. In any event, such sites now serve as a living laboratory of the future of retailing. For sure, the “first-movers” have left their offline brick-and-mortar competitors in catch-up mode.
Some people argue that old-world retailers should leverage their offline assets and brand name to create a seamless online presence that out-competes the upstarts. But such a hybrid “brick-and-click” approach fails to recognize a simple reality of the online world: Most Internet users maintain a “favorites” list of bookmarked Web sites that they visit most frequently. More important, the average favorites list contains no more than two or three dozen Web sites.
So the debate about who will win - pure bricks, pure clicks, or bricks-and-clicks - misses the point. All retailers are competing for consumer attention. If consumers won't have more than 15 retail sites bookmarked on their favorites lists, then there will be no more than one or two winners in each major product category. Hence, due to the rapid ramp-up of online shopping and the limited space available on the average e-shopper's favorites list, each retail category faces a massive shakeout.
Clearly, the retail battle will be decided on the favorites lists. Web sites that don't get bookmarked either will constantly struggle to survive or be swept swiftly to oblivion. Conversely, those sites that garner most surfers' attention will win - big time!
And that's the story of this book.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
FutureConsumer.Com: The Webolution of Shopping to 2010
FutureConsumer.Com: The Webolution of Shopping to 2010,Frank Feather,Warwick Publishing,1894020677,Business & Economics,Business / Economics / Finance,Business/Economics,Consumer behavior,Consumption (Economics),E-Commerce - Internet Marketing,Economic Conditions,Electronic commerce,Forecasting,Structural Adjustment,Business,Future,Internet marketing,Marketing
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