I awoke today to find that, in my isolated neck of the woods where I live, Mother Nature had decided to drop some snow around my car.
Having already had a huge amount of snow over the Christmas period, it was not a very welcome sight to see the car completely submerged.
After an abortive attempt to dig the car out I trudged back to the house to see what I could do from home. In these days of internet connectivity wherever you go I was easily able to work from home, accessing emails, redirecting phone calls, working on the intranet and all the other daily work tasks – minus having someone else making the coffee!
This also got me thinking about how the internet has enabled more and more of us to perform more and more tasks and jobs from home. Shopping online – Internet Retailing – is an obvious example. A sector still experience growth when other areas of commerce are suffering.
The latest statistics out from IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Index show that even in the teeth of a recession Internet Retail has shown a like for like growth of 5% for January – a massive total spend of £4.3bn.
Certain products like high-end electronics and luxury items did not see a great deal of growth, however clothing and footwear were out in front with 10% like-for-like growth.
It shows that, when the weather turns bad, and money is a little tighter, people like to sit down at home in front of their PC/Laptop/iPhone/NetBook/NetTV etc and order up something nice for themselves online. It is with this in mind that Internet Retailers should take heart and be looking to drive their online businesses further this year and look to be part of the continued growth of Internet Retail.
As for myself, I’m currently searching for a company that sells snow shovels and delivers via 4×4!