Just read an article in the Express "Boom in shopping online - Internet sales up as high street loses out to armchair browsing".

A few extracts from article -

" Shopping on the internet reached an all-time high in the run up to Christmas as consumers went online to cut costs and avoid busy high streets. Online spending in the last three months of 2004 matched the total sales of the Bluewater shopping mall in Kent 19 times over. Internet shopping accounted for 3.4 per cent of total retail sales in the last 3 months of last year - compared to less than 1 per cent 4 years ago.Shoppers spent a record 2.6 billion online - a 44.5 per cent increas on the same period in 2003, according to the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG). Meanwhile high street retailers such as Marks & Spencer, Next and Woolworths reported a slowdown in sales during December.

Nearly 12 million people shopped online last year, spending 1 in every 40 through the internet. Browsing online soared by 23 per cent as 1 in 10 shoppers logged on in December, retail analysts Verdict Research estimate. The most popular site was eBay, which took almost 30 per cent of traffic, followed by Amazon with a 7.6 per cent market share, internet monitoring company Hitwise said. Amazon recently reported a record Xmas, with more than 2.8 millionn items ordered in a single day - 32 purchases a second.........."

It would appear that the trend to online shopping is clear. I have just sold Woolworths (too boring) and bought ASOS at 0.7975. I know its late in the day to get into this share but I think online shopping is only going to get bigger and bigger!! I am looking for a few ASOS like tips but at a much earlier stage in their developement. I think ASOS has further to go, but I have already missed out on the truly amazing share performance experienced in 2004 and would like to invest in 1 or 2 others a little earlier!!

Chelsea

slightly off the track, but take a look at Retail Decisions (RTD), they are a fraud protection company who operate in the card not present environment - ie they provide protection to the online retailers. They are currently profitable mainly due to the cash cow part of the business - fuel cards in Australia, but they are fully exposed to the growth potential in online retailing - theyre client list is like a who's who of blue chip retailers. http://www.redplc.com