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An electronic retailer, usually one selling something on a
website. Many e-tailers suffered in early 2001 as a result of the
dotcom collapse, and even those with significant sales volumes and
strong branding have not been shielded from market forces. e Toys, one of
the web's best-known retailers, collapsed at the beginning of 2001. Its
demise was followed by that of hundreds of smaller players who were unable
to generate sufficient sales to cover their running costs. Most of the
successful remaining e-tailers have big brands behind them: either online
brands such as Toys "R' Us.
The collapse of the dotcom market
convinced many sceptics that online shopping was doomed to fizzle out, but
there are few sings that consumers are suffering from the same lack of
confidence. A 2002 survey by Nielsen NetRatings, an internet research firm,
showed that online shopping is growing 15 times faster than general retail
sales in the UK, and three times faster than the equivalent growth in the
United States. Some 60% of the UK's online population visited an e-tailer
over the Christmas 2002 period, spending over pound 1 billion in November
2002 alone. |
