Travel will be the third largest seller through interactive channels by the year 2004, accounting for £2.9bn sales, according to a new e-commerce survey conducted by The Henley Centre.
Records, CDs and videos are expected to be the top seller with around 9.9% of sales while books are predicted to be number two accounting for 9.6% of on-linerevenue.
The Henley Centre Demand Survey examined interactive consumers’ spending habits.
Henley Centre associate director Andrew Curry said: “The rates of growth which are talked about can worry people because they are so high – it’s easy to write them off as hype.
“But the numbers do make sense in the context of the ways in which consumer spending habits are changing.”
He said travel companies such as Thomas Cook were reacting to the threat of on-line travel agencies such as lastminute.com by increasing customer service levels in its high-street shops.
“Thomas Cook’s response (to the on-line travel agents) is to elaborate its offer. You can now book a personal appointment to discuss your holidays with the travel agency between 5 and 8pm,” he said.
He warned on-line companies not to reduce their customer service levels because they were selling on-line. “Companies think they can cut back their service but people still want to speak to someone about their purchase,” he added.
Digital TV is also expected to have a huge impact. The consumer consultancy said the key to understanding the importance of e-commerce in the future was to look at consumers’ buying behaviour. The survey found consumers are becoming increasingly demanding.
Henley Centre director of consumer consultancy Martin Hayward said:”Customers are becoming complex animals which are not as easy to manipulate. Now they have more money but far less time in which to spend it and more choice than ever but less time to choose.
“The Henry Ford adage that you can have any colour you like as long as it is black is no longer valid. Consumers arejust much more demanding than ever before.”
n See Travel On-line conference,page 5