If online shopping becomes substantial … Many of today’s warehouses, retail establishments, and last-mile delivery by housewives and other consumers, will not be needed. Information products like video, music, software, and news may be selected and delivered online with no retail or warehousing. Market-making businesses, like real-estate listings, travel agencies, and security and commodity brokerage may disappear. Staple items may be purchased online, and delivered via services like United Parcel or new local or manufacturer-owned delivery companies. Industrial and durable goods, where in-depth, comparative information and computer-based analysis tools will be most important, will also be examined and screened online … The employment and resource allocation changes generated by online shopping during the coming century might be comparable to the shifts out of agriculture.
Predictor: Press, Larry
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article for Communications of the ACM [Association for Computing Machinery] about the commercialization of the Internet, Larry Press, a professor of computer-information systems at California State University, Dominguez Hills, writes: ”Today, online shopping is a drop in the bucket, but Forrester Research predicts it will grow to $4.8 billion by 1998 … If online shopping becomes substantial, we will need new distribution methods and channels. Many of today’s warehouses, retail establishments, and last-mile delivery by housewives and other consumers, will not be needed. Information products like video, music, software, and news may be selected and delivered on-line with no retail or warehousing. Market-making businesses, like real-estate listings, travel agencies, and security and commodity brokerage may disappear. Staple items may be purchased online, and delivered via services like United Parcel or new local or manufacturer-owned delivery companies. Industrial and durable goods, where in-depth, comparative information and computer-based analysis tools will be most important, will also be examined and screened online. We may still go to the mall/mercado for fresh vegetables, movies, lunch, boutique clothing, and other items, but it will not be today’s mall. The employment and resource allocation changes generated by online shopping during the coming century might be comparable to the shifts out of agriculture during this century.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Economic structures
Subtopic: Shopping
Name of publication: Business and Industry, Communications of the ACM
Title, headline, chapter name: Commercialization of the Internet
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://som.csudh.edu/fac/lpress/comm.htm
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney