Editor’s Leader column, November/December 2009

Out with my daughter recently, we were a bit lost in an unfamiliar city. I wondered out loud how far we were from the train station, whatever time we were likely to get home and should I enlist assistance from a policeman (if I could find one).

“Wait,” said Rosie, getting out her mobile phone and calmly reaching into the brave new world of science fiction . . . She flicked the screen, surfed the web and found a street map. A few nimble fingertips later she had also determined which train we needed.

I know about smartphones, of course; squillions of people use them, all over the world. But this was my ordinary, mumsy world, colliding with the 21st century of my workplace. I realised, at last, that my habit of nipping out with a purse, a house key and a shopping list but without an apps-laden gadget is actually no longer normal. Normal is taking the web with you, everywhere. Surfing the web on a piece of plastic thinner than an old-fashioned chequebook is now de rigueur (page 5). People are mobilising!

So, has the Internet truly trounced all other forms of media? Should marketers now concentrate on the mobile web as a means of reaching the consumer?

I don’t think so. I absolutely agree that the ’net is the most fantastic thing outside of Dr Who . . . and the iPhone handier than his sonic screwdriver (probably). But I bet my bottom dollar that even as e-commerce soars, traditional channels will glide alongside; a symbiosis every bit as mutually effective as a hungry bird pecking a tick-itchy zebra (page 20).

Postal operators might well be in need of modernisation, but they still have value in the business world (page 16). For consumers, letters can seem more friendly than emails (page 26) and parcels can surely only mean pleasure (page 6), especially in the run-up to Christmas. As for telemarketing, I can’t remember the last time I received an unsolicited call – that dirty face of DM seems to have washed itself up.

My concern is that – aside from deliberate scammers (page 25), cyberspace has become common ground for new traders who see the web as a means of making a living without paying bricks-and-mortar overheads. There are genuine ‘pure play’ firms selling/supplying excellent products and services, but there are also those who don’t respect customers or their data (page 15) and who care even less about an after-sales service. These are start-ups run by upstarts.

Post-recession thrift has made consumers monitors of price as well as quality. Recently, I have had two bad experiences of being tempted by offers from novice e-sellers – both sent me hurrying back to the high street, into the arms of the real world experts.

The only difference was, this time I went clutching a web-enabled gadget.