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It is, therefore, interesting to take a look at gadget retailing, as we are seeing evidence to suggest that operating solely online has some serious advantages. Last week brought the collapse of The Gadget Shop, which is about to go into administration, and earlier in the year the 52 outlets of high-street gadget seller Must Have It shut up shop after disappointing trading over Christmas.

Since both these chains were operated by pretty savvy, experienced retailers, let's assume it wasn't through poor retailing fundamentals. Chris Gorman, who co-founded DX Communications and set up fulfilment business Reality, and Tom Hunter, a retail entrepreneur, both held big stakes in The Gadget Shop, while John Caudwell, the telecommunications billionaire who runs Phones 4U, owned the Must Have It chain.

Part of the problem might well have been increased competition from general retailers, such as Matalan, Next, Marks & Spencer, and the department stores wanting a slice of the fast-growing gadget retailing market.

Whereas these well-known names have been able to provide a good gift offer at the times of year when consumers are most likely to buy gadgets as presents, specialists such as The Gadget Shop have had to attract customers all year round.

Although this is a difficult task for a high-street retailer, it is meat and drink to a solely online gadget specialist. With their limited overheads, it is much easier to weather quieter periods of the year. In addition, they can stay ahead of the demand curve by offering the latest gadgets well ahead of the high-street competition.

While high-street lead-times are slower, the online operators can get state-of-the-art gadgets 'on the shelves' in a matter of days. For those suppliers in the Far East developing gadgets and technology, which want to get them onto the market quickly to gauge early customer response, the online players present an ideal channel.

This provides online specialists such as Firebox.com and Iwantoneofthose.com with a core audience of year-round customers, to whom the high-street operators will never appeal because they are so strongly focused on catering to the mainstream gift-buying market.

The founder of Firebox.com suggests catering predominantly for a core audience that wants cutting-edge gadgets is a much better position in which to be. When more mainstream products are needed - at peak trading times when gifts are the order of the day - they can easily be added to its website.

Such is its change of view on the multi-channel model for selling gadgets, that Firebox.com has mothballed its intention of gaining a presence on the high street.

It had been looking to open concessions with a store operator, but has switched strategy after witnessing the difficulties of the high-street gadget sellers. This, combined with the continued growth of Firebox.com's business online, has led it to stick with its internet model.

This thinking is not limited to the gadgets market. It was interesting to see that the City was hinting that TV shopping business Ideal Shopping (which has been demonstrating strong growth of late) should lose any aspirations it might have of opening up physical stores.

So while there are statistics to prove that a multi-channel model works very well, this certainly should not be seen as the only method of operating for every merchant. As gadget retailing seems to be showing, the pure online model is well suited to specific product categories.

30 SECONDS ON... GADGETS

- US magazine Mobile PC has compiled an all-time list of the top 100 gadgets.

- The Apple Powerbook 100 (1991) is rated by the magazine as the best gadget, with today's top-selling item, Apple's iPod (2001), placed 12th.

- Sony's answer to the iPod, the Sony NW-HD1- a hard-drive digital music player - was pitted against the iPod, but didn't support one of the most popular digital music file formats, MP3. According to Danielle Levites, vice-president of consumer devices research at IDC, Sony had 'come to the party late and when they finally came, they weren't dressed appropriately'.

- Some of the oldest gadgets in the list include the metronome (1816), the telephone (1876), the Swiss Army Knife (1891) and the abacus (190 AD).

- In 1973, Motorola researcher Martin Cooper made the world's first mobile phone call. Ten years later Motorola developed the DynaTAC 8000X, which sold for just under $4000 and offered only an hour's talk time.