‘Like rabbits in the headlights’: Britain’s mail order retailers and the home shopping revolution

"For much of the twentieth century ‘home shopping’ in Britain was dominated by the so-called ‘Big Five’ specialist mail order retailers: GUS, Littlewoods, Freemans, Grattan and Empire Stores. These companies, especially since the 1960s, benefited from progressive improvements in Britain’s distributive machinery. Pre-packaged goods helped to reduce handling costs; a more flexible delivery network, based on road rather than rail, speeded final destination delivery; computers facilitated accounting and stock control procedures; advertising campaigns familiarised customers with branded goods on offer in the catalogue while simultaneously breaking down residual loyalty to the local store; more recently, almost universal access to the telephone made it possible for individual customers to place an order with the minimum of inconvenience, by-passing the intermediary of the traditional mail order agent. These companies also accumulated considerable skills and sophisticated systems relating to the assessment of customer creditworthiness. Given this context – along with the their proven expertise in distance selling – the arrival, at the end of the twentieth century, of teleshopping and then shopping online seemed to open up new horizons for Britain’s mail order retailers and to promise a revolution in shopping habits. The established mail order houses, however, have experienced difficulty in positioning themselves in the contemporary retailing environment. Neither teleshopping nor shopping online has grown organically out of the British experience of mail order retailing. Perhaps surprisingly, the opportunities presented by these new forms of retailing have been exploited more effectively by dynamic new companies. These companies have thrived, unburdened by a commitment to earlier retailing forms and unfettered by an agency system that has become an increasingly embarrassing overhead to traditional mail order companies. Somewhat ironically, it seems that the new, successful internet retailers may conform to a model of entrepreneurial activity which more closely approximates the activity of the early mail order retailers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This paper will explore the fractures between traditional mail order and newer forms of home shopping, highlighting some of the historical reasons which explain the divergence between both sectors. It will examine the developing structures and practices of traditional mail order firms and outline external and internal factors contributing to the rise of internet shopping and the successful companies in this sector."