Future Consumer.com [Paperback]

Frank Feather (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2002

Updated to include the dot.com disaster, this prophetic book, now in paperback, explains the stock market shakedown, why it happened, and what's next.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

EXTRACT from the PREFACE to the Updated 2nd Edition (Tradepaper Version)

Forget the “dot-com shakeout” and the Nasdaq meltdown of 2000. Every seven seconds somebody new buys something online for the first time. The Internet Revolution, or “Webolution,” rolls inexorably onward and e-commerce will soon rebound stronger than ever. Online shopping is gathering strength and the dot-com shakeout will ultimately be seen as a small hiccup.

By 2010, the Internet will gobble up 30 percent of retail spending, leaving most brick-and-mortar retailers in rubble. All but the most savvy will get killed. Most strip malls and many shopping malls, along with half the department stores, supermarkets, retail chains, banks, and local shops, will vanish without a trace as click-and-buy e-tailing takes over.

The head-spinning Webolution is not easy to forecast. However, before it’s done — around 2018 — it will reverse and unwind virtually everything that the Industrial Revolution put into place. It will smash the mass consumption economy to smithereens and re-center it on the home.

The Webolution is so big that few yet grasp its significance. Since the dot-com shakeout, there have been many silly Web obituaries. Doubtless, the plodding plowman didn’t “get it” when the first steam train puffed past his field. So it is with many journalists and economists today when they dismiss the Web.

But this Webolution will rock the world, again utterly transforming life and commerce. And the rewards will accrue fastest to those who embrace it first. Online sales will kick in big time in the years 2002–2005, and grow rapidly throughout the decade to top $1 trillion by 2010. By then, the Web will be a hundred times bigger than today — a tidal wave HyperWeb that will drown those who can’t or won’t surf.

The Internet is fast becoming a shopper’s paradise. It is changing not only how people buy, but how often, when, what, why, and from where. By 2010, a majority of Americans will live what Bill Gates calls a “Web Lifestyle” and will do at least some e-shopping. Most of them will do most of their shopping online.

Where will people buy? Whether or not pure e-tail Web sites such as Amazon.com will still be a favorite of online shoppers in 2010 is an intriguing question. In any event, such sites now serve as a living laboratory of the future of retailing. For sure, the “first-movers” have left their offline brick-and-mortar competitors in catch-up mode.

Some people argue that old-world retailers should leverage their offline assets and brand name to create a seamless online presence that out-competes the upstarts. But such a hybrid “brick-and-click” approach fails to recognize a simple reality of the online world: Most Internet users maintain a “favorites” list of bookmarked Web sites that they visit most frequently. More important, the average favorites list contains no more than two or three dozen Web sites.

So the debate about who will win — pure bricks, pure clicks, or bricks-and-clicks — misses the point. All retailers are competing for consumer attention. If consumers won’t have more than 15 retail sites bookmarked on their favorites lists, then there will be no more than one or two winners in each major product category. Hence, due to the rapid ramp-up of online shopping and the limited space available on the average e-shopper’s favorites list, each retail category faces a massive shakeout.

Clearly, the retail battle will be decided on the favorites lists. Web sites that don’t get bookmarked either will constantly struggle to survive or be swept swiftly to oblivion. Conversely, those sites that garner most surfers’ attention will win — big time!

And that’s the story of this book.

Product Details

• Paperback: 340 pages
• Publisher: Warwick Publishing; 2 edition (March 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1894622189
• ISBN-13: 978-1894622189
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,396,743 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT VALUE: Updated 2nd Edition is EVEN BETTER than the 1st, April 14, 2002

By 

Mike Mansbridge, Strategy & Marketing Consultant (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Future Consumer.com (Paperback)

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This book is a winner and well worth your time and money. I found the 1st edition of "Future Consumer.Com" extremely useful in my work as a strategic planning and marketing consultant, referring to it often. And so did my clients.

But I just read the new, updated, 2nd Edition (in softcover), and it is even better! I fully agree that the first book was worth *5 Stars* but this is worth more and is bound to be successful. I remember the 1st edition was on Amazon's business best-seller lists for several weeks when it first came out. This one should do even better.

Not only has the material been updated to account for the dot-com shakeout (with the author explains in compelling detail) but new case study material has been added. As well, Feather has updated all his forecasts for e-commerce sales, by category, and basically is sticking with his original forecasts to 2010. And, based on the ongoing trend in e-commerce, I think he will be proven correct.

The 2nd edition also has some brand new material in the form of an Introduction that was not in the 1st edition. This 20-odd page chapter alone is worth the modest price of the book. It is an articulate, well-argued, but blistering critique of Harvard strategy guru Michael Porter who, in 2001, wrote a strategy paper in Harvard Business Review that basically claimed that the Internet changes nothing as far as strategy goes. When I read Porter's piece, I felt he was being very defensive of his own strategy model and failed to support his arguments, dismissing succesful online business models such as AOL and Amazon as exceptions to the rule. Feather brilliantly takes Porter's feeble argument apart, and shows why and how the Internet changes the rules of competition and, hence, business models and marketing strategy -- both in the online and offline world. I repeat, this chapter alone is worth the price of the ticket.

One final point worth noting is that the new 2nd edition retains the excellent layout and design of the 1st edition. So it is relatively easy to compare the two texts to see what's new and different. As well, the few typos that one reviewer found annoying in the earlier edition have all been fixed.

In short, this is a crisp, clean, up-to-date and easy-to-read book that everybody in business strategy and marketing should be reading. Feather's out-of-the box thinking not only stretches your mind but suggests concrete ways to achieve greater marketplace success. Whether you're selling products and services on Main Street or over the Web, this book points the way.

I would give it "7 Stars out of 5" but I am restricted to 5. Do yourself a favor and put this book, not on your bookshelf, but on your desktop. And get your colleagues to buy one too. Your business will only benefit.
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