The BBC is wheeling Del Boy out of retirement again, the nation's high streets are full to bursting and Sir Cliff has got a particularly grating record out. It must be Christmas, so it's also time for all the ailing shopping sites to wheel out their statistics about how this festive season is going to be the biggest shopping bonanza ever on the web.
With just a hint of desperation, the big e-commerce players are slapping on a smile and telling anyone who'll listen how great it is to shop on the web. Witness, too, the bizarre Royal Mail advert doing the rounds featuring the queen of shopping, Elton John. Apparently, if you order anything off the internet then you'll need a postal service to deliver it - erm, thanks for pointing that out, Elton.
The simple truth is that shopping on the internet has not taken off in the way that many predicted, and hoped, it would. There are a host of reasons for this, many of which have been well documented, but it's worth examining just why the idea of buying on the web, which was supposed to herald a revolution in our retailing habits, has instead merely led to much more subtle shifts in the way we consume.
Early experiences didn't help. Those trying to buy through the web in the days when hype was all and the bigger your marketing budget the bigger your share price, found that e-commerce sites cared little for the customer. It was all about traffic and whether or not people actually got what they ordered was an almost incidental concern. Anyone who dabbled with ordering anything other than a CD or a book around that time probably recalls the pain of trying to get through to a human being on the phone whenever things went wrong. Which was frequently.
Things are better now, of course, and those shopping sites still standing have, by and large, learnt the lessons of those early days. The problem being that, having being bitten, many people are now shy of going back to the web. Despite the fact that the number of people online has continued to rise, the number buying on it has remained fairly stable.
Clearly, there are certain things that it makes sense to buy on the internet, such as travel tickets, books, CDs and DVDs, and others, such as toys, fridge freezers, spades and clothes, which it doesn't. This should have been common sense from day one, but it didn't stop scores of sites springing up flogging everything from lawnmowers to lampshades. And as the dot.com downturn kicked, desperate sites slashed prices but were unable to cope with the subsequent rush. Last Christmas, more than half of orders submitted to E-Toys ended up being delivered after the big day.
Another concern remains security, or rather people's perceptions of it. Despite the industry's best efforts - as well as a government sponsored campaign in the run up to Christmas to convince us that shopping on the web is safe - many are still reluctant to hand over their credit card details. Web- based solutions, allowing surfers to pay money into online wallets such as Splash Plastic and PayPal, have also proved unpopular.
Possible innovations such as mobile payment methods, which effectively allow you to use your phone as a credit card, and "internet safe" credit cards that come complete with an attached reader that plugs into your computer, may go some way towards providing the answer.
Perhaps, though, it's time to face up to the fact that online shopping is nothing more than just another sales channel - one that isn't going to change the world or revolutionise the way we shop. For the majority, the high street, or more likely the mall, will remain the place to spend their wages. And just as some people will always prefer to shop from a brick-sized catalogue, a minority will choose the convenience of the web.
The picture isn't altogether bleak, simply more realistic. The industry is maturing and, as such, the success stories are more modest, yet more significant in the long term. Tesco.com is one such example, quietly bringing in a significant number of customers online - particularly those who can't make it to a shop during the working day. The reasons it is succeeding are easy to identify but difficult to replicate - a user-friendly site, plenty of secure payment options and flexible delivery times. As one of the last pure plays standing, Amazon has also shown the value of good customer service, while a smattering of small independent record and book stores have also found a new lease of life thanks to the web.
In the current environment, everyone, online and off, is finding it tough, but for the consumer it's the best thing that could possibly have happened to e-commerce. For the one thing, most of those left standing have in common is decent customer service and a sense of what will sell on the web and what won't. Price no longer matters as much, but convenience and the ability to deliver do.
