ASOS says online sales of mens and womens fashion are going through the roof.

ASOS says online sales of mens and womens fashion are going through the roof.

LONDON - The retail industry is undergoing a revolution.

As techno-savvy consumers increasingly go online to shop, internet sales are booming and bricks and mortar businesses are following specialist e-retailers onto the web.

The fashion retailer ASOS, which specialises in selling versions of celebrity outfits online, yesterday posted an 111 per cent increase in annual sales.

Taking aside the fact that last year's comparatives were hit by the explosion at the nearby Buncefield fuel depot, turnover was still up around 80 per cent.

And in March, ASOS recorded its highest traffic levels ever, with more than 2 million visitors to its website.

Research published this week by IMRG, the industry body for global e-retailers, reveals that £42bn will be spent online by UK shoppers this year, which is equivalent to London's West End sales nine times over and also matches the turnover of the supermarket giant Tesco.

Some 860 million parcels will be shipped to the UK's 26 million internet shoppers and each online consumer will spend £1,600 on average.

It is just 13 years since the first secure internet shopping transaction took place in August 1994 with the sale of a CD in the US.

By the time of the dot com gold rush in 2000, internet sales had reached £800m a year.

Despite fears over the future of the internet after the dot com bubble burst and initial consumer concerns about the safety of shopping by credit card online, e-commerce sales have exploded over the past six years, growing by a whopping 3,500 per cent.

James Roper, the chief executive at the IMRG, says that, in much the same way that the concept of self-service transformed the way people shopped from over-the-counter style transactions, self-service online will transform the way people consume.

Traditional retailers have to concentrate on the mass market as they only have the shelf space and time for the best-selling products, he says.

But with the internet, consumers have unlimited choice.

"It is a bigger market place and consumers can find precisely the product they want rather than just what is available in the shops," he said.

"You can get products from anywhere in the world. The traditional retail model is not geared up for that."