Dr. Neil Hair

Nielsen has just released figures on Britain's continued love affair with e-retail (figures show unique visitors for the month of November 05). 1 Ebay (12.5m) 2 Amazon.co.uk (9.0m) 3 Yahoo! Shopping (5.1m) 4 Tesco (4.4m) 5 Shopping.com (3.5m) What's interesting about this from my own personal perspective is that many American firms are loosing out with their continued insistence that they will not ship internationally. I cant honestly say I understand it. I guess it's the marketer in me, if they have the money and desire, satisfy the market place surely? Payment is not the issue – there is a plethora of international payment options available with instant transfer of money. Customs shouldn't be the issue either – responsibility for this rests with the customer. It cant be language (we're pretty similar in that regard and the worlds business language is undoubtedly English). International trade history also teaches us that the problem isn't simply a case of splendid isolationism ('the American market is big enough' syndrome). If we don't compete over there they will come here (as Tesco's recent ambitions in the local grocery market suggest, the only thing that kept Wegmans safe was its privately owned status). With exchange rates the way they are at the moment American firms should be making a fortune from overseas markets. The whole issue is of course complicated by lack of concrete figures available on overseas e-retail, a difficult charge to collate in domestic markets let alone international. I also find it strangely ironic that the top three e-retailers originated from the States and now operate as UK based entities. This probably has more to do with deplorable fed-ex service in Europe then it does with anything else. And lets not blame 9/11 or 7/11 either…