The birth of online shopping

[WelshRich]

Just chatting to my kids about how things have changed since I was their age and told them that I remembered a national news story about a guy who was trying to live for a month, only buying things online. This was probably late 90’s and I think he may have been in Japan, but there was incredulity at the time about how you could possibly buy everything you needed for a month without leaving the house.

My kids humoured me but I couldn’t find anything on-line reporting the story - Does anyone else remember this?

[bigandclever]

Not sure about that particular story but in 1990ish I consulted to and built some systems for Peapod in the US who were one of the first online grocery delivery sites, so you could definitely eat for a month (if you were in Chicago)

[bigandclever]

You could blow their minds with this. 1984, Jane Snowball, ordered her shopping online from Tesco…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24091393

[robbieduncan]

Yes. I think it may have been early 2000s rather than late 90s? Sounds like the sort of thing that would have been in WIRED?

[WelshRich]

bigandclever said:

You could blow their minds with this. 1984, Jane Snowball, ordered her shopping online from Tesco…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24091393

They’ll love the fact that one of the first three companies in the UK to do this sort of thing was Greggs 🥧

[bigandclever]

WelshRich said:

They’ll love the fact that one of the first three companies in the UK to do this sort of thing was Greggs ??

Yeah, I checked the publication date too, made sure it wasn’t April 1

[ARHarh]

When i was a kid there wasn't even online let alone buying online You were lucky if you had a phone, even luckier if you had a phone you didn't share with a neighbour.

[Mr-B]

I vaguely recall there being a UK competition for something similar possibly run by BRMB (Birmingham) radio? I think 2 people were chosen and had to do it in a Big Brother style environment. The more I think about the more I think I may have imagined it entirely! For my sanity can someone else confirm this happened

[beko1987]

I remember asking my stepdad for a cheque for something I wanted to buy on ebay, before Paypal... Gave him the cash, he wrote me a cheque and the wait began. Was revolutionary at the time!

[AlexC1981]

bigandclever said:

You could blow their minds with this. 1984, Jane Snowball, ordered her shopping online from Tesco…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24091393

Mrs Snowball. What a great name.

It took a while, but it certainly did snowball

[Teddy Lop]

robbieduncan said:

Yes. I think it may have been early 2000s rather than late 90s? Sounds like the sort of thing that would have been in WIRED?

You could buy a lot online by the late 90s, even in the forest of dean with bleepblonk dialup, while the japs were *the* big tech-forward nation of the time, so seems plausible.