Mind the Gap!
If any of you have ever traveled the London Underground – or the “Tube” as they refer to it here, they you know what I am talking about. For those of you that don’t, then let’s just say it is the sometimes WIDE distance between the car and the platform. And trust me on this one friend, there are times when this gap is best kept in mind when departing.
And if you really want to take the pulse of London, or any metro area for that matter, just ride public transportation and you will see and hear all that is afoot especially in terms of media advertising. So what did I immediately see while looking around the Tube, well lots and lots of dot.com advertisements!
Besides the overabundance of broadband service, there was the familiar Match.com as well as these: lastminute.com that caters to last minute travelers in search of deals, there was confused.com, insureandgo.com, both about insurance needs.
Why I am blogging about dot.coms and Mind the Gap, you see, is that the gap in offline and online behavior in the U.K. has significantly lessened or “shrunk” since my last visit in March 2007. Last March, before joining PowerReviews, I had the distinct honor of serving on Mercado’s Customer Advisory Board. And it was at that time that they sponsored a brief speaking tour for me here in London to address a few crowds of their customers and prospects. It was then that I took a significant inventory of the online business in the U.K. as well as made some projections of my own in terms of how fast this metro would further embrace the online world of ecommerce and “catch-up” to the U.S. pace and adoption.
And from what I have seen since my arrival, this capital city is now on par with the best that the U.S. has to offer in terms of awareness, penetration and adoption of online shopping. Besides the mini-billboard type advertisements in the underground, every fun and trendy shop I have passed these past days has their URL firmly painted and planted on their storefront windows.
So while there will always be a gap between tube trains and their platforms, the gap in online shopping adoption between the U.K. and the U.S. has notably changed for the better. Now, I guess I better just Mind the Doors as this train is ready to depart.
on March 10, 2008 on 8:33 am
hey friend!This is a Great Blog!
http://www.net4shops.com