Important Developments at the Interface of People, Retailing and Industry

Click image to enlarge Over the past ten years products such as Video Recorders and CRT Televisions have all but vanished from Western European markets. In 1998 Analogue Camcorders, Mini and Car Audio Systems, Video Recorders and CRT Televisions dominated the Technical Consumer Goods market with a 65% share of sales.

Ten years down the line in 2008 these products now only accounted for 4% of the market. On the other hand, products we know and love today, such as LCD and Plasma Televisions, Portable Navigation Devices and Digital Camcorders didn’t event account for 1% of this market back in 1998, yet in 2008 these products make up the lion’s share at 66%.

Not only changing trends from bulky to compact and analogue to digital have impacted upon the market – shorter product life cycles are now also a key characteristic, with consumers replacing and updating technical consumer goods more frequently than ever before.

Using the current markets' global bestseller - the LCD Television - as an example, 90% of turnover made with this product at the end of 2008 was made with products which have been on the market for less than 12 months. Through innovations, new designs and features, manufacturers have successfully managed to prolong the market saturation of such products.

From The High Street to The Web

Click image to enlarge For 1.6 billion people worldwide the Internet has become part of everyday life. Consumers have never been better informed about products, prices and quality. It's therefore no surprise to hear that within the space of ten years, 10,000 new Business-to-Consumer online shopping sites have emerged in Western Europe alone and more than 10% of sales of technical consumer goods in Europe are online.

Online retailers can offer an almost unlimited array of products which high street stores cannot compete with due to space limitations. However traditional retailers have reacted to this by offering consumers an experience when they enter stores on the high street in the form of concept stores, in-store events and above all a high quality service which is difficult to match online.

The Success of Digitalisation

Click image to enlarge Products such as LCD TVs, digital cameras, mobile phones and MP3/MP4 players symbolise the triumphant success of digitalisation and far outperform their analogue predecessors in terms of sales figures.

Although analogue cameras achieved record sales in 2000, with 71 million cameras sold worldwide, the 140 million digital cameras sold last year demonstrate the enormous sales potential offered by new technology.

Now product digital convergence is becoming increasingly popular; in 2008 2.5 Mobile Phones were sold per minute across the world. Of those 64% (786 million) had a camera function and 3% (36 million) a navigation function.