By offering cheaper prices that don't have to take ground rents and staffing into account, the basket-to-door delivery of web retailers has made the internet first choice for many of us when it comes to groceries, books, CDs and DVDs.
In fact, some 24 million people in the UK let their fingers do the walking in 2007, proving that e-commerce is now a major part of the retail landscape.
However, rumours of the death of the high street are greatly exaggerated.
While giants like eBay have evolved from glorified online car boot sales to become the planet's biggest and most sophisticated online brands, all is most definitely not lost. E-commerce is in fact sharpening the instincts of high street retailers and creating positive change.
Now, more than ever before, retail brands are tapping into what shoppers really want from a store. Along with this, they are successfully articulating their brand values where it counts, at point of sale. All this will make a real difference and enable much of the high street to survive the magnetic pull of online shopping.
One obvious change will be how stores actually look. My prediction is that retail interiors will become more stimulating, offer easier navigation, embrace real innovation particularly with hi-tech advancements and also facilitate the emerging trend of browsing online and buying on foot.
We can expect truly radical technology in food retail. For example, Metro's retail 'laboratory store' in Germany already boasts innovations which include tablet computers attached to shopping trolley. Activated by loyalty cards they can download a shopping list emailed to the store earlier, check your favourites list, print out personalised special offers, and get directions to particular aisles -- an appealing prospect for time-poor but tech-savvy shoppers who might otherwise defect to the internet.
We will also see supermarkets where you won't even have to check out anymore. RFID scanners will automatically scan your bags as you exit the store and the bill will be sent automatically to your credit card account.
All begins to make the internet look a bit low tech, doesn't it?
Injecting drama and theatre into the retail environment is also an option being pursued by a number of showcase stores. Selfridges is the undisputed champion of this business model with vendors strongly encouraged to be creative and provide exciting, vibrant areas, which not only look very different, but offer unusual things such as body piercing.
Selfridges leads the field in footfall generating "events" such as Body Craze, described as an "uninhibited celebration of the human form" in which 600 naked people rode up and down its escalators in full view of press photographers. Great promotion for the store, and a national press showcase for the new store environment seen by millions.
The formula has certainly worked, with sales and trading profits rising steadily when others are struggling. Selfridges now has a handful of regional outlets, each very distinctive and designed as retail magnets. The Manchester store for example has each floor created by an internationally renowned architect and, packed with fresh ideas and entertainment, provides an immediate experience for people living and working in the city centre.
The Birmingham store meanwhile is clad in aluminium like a spaceship.
In the crowded retail market, it's vital to sustain profitability and standout. Stores like Selfridges have shown a clarity of thinking about what their retail environment should look like to attract a certain type of consumer. This is the sort of brand literacy and commercial awareness that makes the tills ring. Doubtless thousands of department stores, famed for being a bit out of date, will be able to inject some of the same magic and tap into a "younger centre of gravity" making the internet shopper feel both welcome and stimulated on the high street.
Others have also achieved stand out by using the retail space as a huge canvas on which the rules about what a retail outlet should look like have simply been rewritten.
These environments scream for attention and get it. New looks and concepts abound in London: Fornarina's plastic spaceship in Carnaby Street with walls and ceiling displaying white plastic 'teeth' fitting together like alien scales - also acting as shelves for the shoes they glow with a constantly changing wash of coloured light. Diesel in New Bond Street with its surreal interior style of lurid green walls and orange shagpile carpet making it almost as memorable as Comme Des Garcon's Dover Street Market shop with its shabby chic old school furniture.
Meanwhile, some stores will discover something entirely new that takes inspiration from the web itself. CD sales falling on the high street? Then launch a store that offers on the spot downloads to your iPod just like you get top ups for your mobile. This could feature a cafe type environment one that perhaps also fuses with fashion sales. It's all just a matter of thinking and acting differently.
The formula for high street success is probably a simple one -- know your brand and your consumer, don't forget that you have 3D space to use and that you are interfacing with real people. Give them something extra, something to engage both their senses and their wallets.
Nigel Collett is design director of rpa:vision.