Steve Borges's Blog

I speak to lots of fashion retailers and find that many remain unconvinced that there is a robust case to invest in a transactional website for their business.

I realise this is an anathema to E-consultancy regulars, but the fact is that, if a well-established offline retailer looks at a potential e-commerce channel as a standalone business, the case can look less than compelling.

In last week's post, I misquoted Terry Duddy when he predicted (and this is the corrected version) that online retail sales wouldn't be much more than 10-15% of total UK retail sales by 2015 – my apologies Terry.

With my fingers somewhat burnt, I thought I’d play it safe this week and take a quick look at what’s being said in the US about online sales, now and in the future, to see if this helps inform the debate in the UK.

I noticed today that Jessops has quietly launched a reserve online and collect at store service on its site, following in the footsteps of Argos, PC World, Currys and Comet.