Is your business thinking about joining the international e-commerce marketplace? Are you a provider of the new technological platforms for e-commerce? Are you a consumer?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then this glimpse into the future of retailing is for you. But this report is primarily for those businesses who have not yet seen the opportunities that the Internet, digital TV and third generation mobile phones can offer you.

The Foresight Retail and Consumer Services Panel has brought together recent forecasts of e-commerce in the UK and highlighted the opportunities that these represent for retailers both large and small. But in true Foresight fashion it has gone beyond current trends to look at alternative futures to examine the impact on retailers and ICT providers alike in a thought provoking and stimulating way. Did you know that women are increasingly likely to use e-commerce for shopping? How can you make sure that new customers access your electronic store front?

E-commerce does not herald the end of shopping as we know it, but rather it offers the consumer alternative store fronts and access to new products and services. The future holds a role for both traditional retailers and newer e-tailers, one enhancing the other. Government and businesses both need to act now to realise the new market opportunities that e-commerce represents.

The Foresight Panel is interested in your views and the strategies you are developing to enter the e-market. So do take up this invitation to contact them with your views of the future in which we the Government have it as our target to make the UK the best place in the world to trade electronically.

Patricia Hewitt
Minister for Small Business and E-commerce