Shopping is a social activity. As well as its functional role it includes the pleasure of browsing, impulse buying, discovering new shops, casual conversation, and planned and unplanned meetings with other people. Electronic shopping is not the same. It is primarily a functional activity since most of the social activity cannot or is not supported. You cannot bump into a friend in the electronic shopping precinct.
Window shopping is hampered by the primitive nature of search engines.
The consumer is dealt with automatically by the computer systems of the supplier - it is a person to machine relationship and not a person to person relationship as is the case with traditional shopping. Whilst electronic commerce provides access at all times and provides a lot of benefit to certain groups, such as those who are house bound, it is very limited in terms of its social welfare capability. Electronic commerce will have a profound effect on society and its organisations and upon our lives as consumers and employees. It is not clear what that impact will be. Therefore a broad and continued social dialogue about these questions is essential to overcome the hurdles and reap the benefits.