I. Read the text, translate it and do the exercise.

II. What do you know about online shopping? (20-25 sentences)

Online shopping expected to grow by 35% this year

Elizabeth Rigby

Consumers are expected to spend 35 per cent more buying a host of items from clothes to CDs online this year, taking total spending for

5 2005 to an estimated £19.6bn, according to the Interactive Media Retail Group. In its first annual report, published today, IMRG said it expected 4m more Britons

10 to shop online this year, taking the total shoppers to 24m, more than half the UK's adult population. The latest figures underline the sharp growth of internet shop-

15 ping in the decade since 1994. While internet shopping account­ed for just £300m of retail sales in 1999, by 2004 consumers were spending £14.5bn online, accord-

20 ing to IMRG.

Online shopping is also counter­acting sluggish consumer spend­ing on the high street. Household expenditure grew by only 0.2 per

25 cent in the fourth quarter of 2004. "For a sector to have grown from scratch in ten years with very lit­tle investment suggests that the internet's time has come," said

30 James Roper, IMRG chief execu­tive.

The larger retailing groups -Kingfisher, Argos, Dixons, Tesco and Boots - are spending money

35 on developing their internet offer­ing, but many retail chains are not investing in online shopping, which in turn is allowing entrants such as figleaves.com, which sells

40 underwear, and asos.com, the clothing e-shop, to gain a foothold in the market.

In 2004, the IMRG estimated that the top 100 retailers in the UK

45 spent just £100m on their internet presence - and most of this came from a handful of stores. But in spite of the neglect from big retail­ers, the growing popularity of

50 online shopping looks set to con-

tinue as more people gain access to the internet.

Figures out from 2004 from Ofcom, the communications regu-

55 lator, showed that more than 56 per cent of homes had internet access, with a third of those hav­ing a broadband connection. The emergence of mobile commerce

6o technology could also mean that people will be able to shop online from their mobile phones.

IMRG said electrical and cloth­ing goods were experiencing

65 strong growth online, with more than £2bn of electrical goods sold over the internet in 2004. Dixons, the high street electrical retailer, expects its online sales - currently

70 at £170m - to hit £lbn in the next five years. Meanwhile, clothing is another big expansion area, with sales growing 37 per cent to £644m in 2004.

From the Financial Times

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 797