As we approach Christmas many business analysts are making their forecasts and observations on retail sales. The British Retail Consortium offers a gloomy set up for Christmas with its November Sales Monitor reporting that retail sales in November added up to the worst sales growth in two years. Kevin Hawkins of the BRC adds, “This is the worst result for London since October 2005 and does not bode well for the run-up to Christmas”. Whilst interest rates are clearly part of this picture I think there may be other factors at work.

As we move into November and December consumers start thinking about Christmas shopping. For many years the only option was to wrap up warm and battle your way down city centre pavements. But now of course, that’s all changed. Consumers can sit at home or in the office (at lunchtime of course) and graze effortlessly from one online catalogue to another.

That this is happening should not come as any surprise. And certainly not to anyone who read Michael de Kare-Silver’s 1998 book “e-shock 2000″. They will find his predictions remarkably accurate. For example he predicted that electronic shopping would “achieve early critical mass by 2005″ and he quoted the UK Confederation of British Industry as saying that “the Internet technology available in ten years [2007] will be sufficient and widespread enough to outstrip the high street in terms of sales”.

On exactly the same day that the British Retail Consortium made its gloomy predictions, sentiments of an entirely different nature were made by the UK Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG). On Monday 10 December the IMRG reported that “more money was spent online in a minute than ever before, according to Retail Decisions, the card issuer and world leader in card fraud prevention and payment processing. UK online shoppers spent an estimated three quarters of a million pounds (£767,500) in just 60 seconds at nine minutes past one this lunchtime”.

As well as convenience factors, value and price factors are also at work. In its 1st December issue The Independent carried a report entitled “Where to log on for the best yuletide bargains”. The savings offered by online retailers in the Independent’s price survey made compelling reading. For example, an electric guitar was reported at £139 on the high street, but £105 (including delivery) from an online retailer. A basket of products costing £617 on the high street sold for £455 online. That makes online 25% cheaper as well as significantly more convenient.

I’d predict things will get worse on the high street, particularly in future run-ups to Christmas when consumers feel time pressure to buy before the holiday begins. I suppose there’s a couple of crumbs of comfort for retailers. Firstly, some have invested heavily in an online presence. While this may have had teething problems before de Kare-Silver’s ‘critical mass’ was reached, they must surely be thankful now. And secondly, we have not yet reached the prediction of Maurice Saatchi who claimed that, “In 30-40 years time (around 2030), there may be no shops at all”.