UK home shopping is moving online. The traditional channels are struggling, with big book catalogues facing serious woes, most of them seeing a decline in combined hard copy and electronic sales. The home shopping market is driven mainly by e-commerce, which has now overtaken mail order as the largest home shopping channel.

This migration has also changed the profile of the home shopping customer. The market is increasingly polarised between younger, more affluent online shoppers and the more mature, often less affluent catalogue (particularly big book) shoppers.

UK home shopping is moving online. The traditional channels are struggling, with big book catalogues facing serious woes, most of them seeing a decline in combined hard copy and electronic sales. The home shopping market is driven mainly by e-commerce, which has now overtaken mail order as the largest home shopping channel.

This migration has also changed the profile of the home shopping customer. The market is increasingly polarised between younger, more affluent online shoppers and the more mature, often less affluent catalogue (particularly big book) shoppers.

The growth of e-tail has brought an influx of external players to the home shopping market. Home shopping specialists now face intense competition from store-based retailers operating online. Having a well-known retail brand with a strongly integrated multi-channel approach is a potent combination, as shown by John Lewis, Tesco and Next.