CompuServe UK
Before the widespread adoption of the Internet and World Wide Web, the UK’s first national major brands online shopping service was developed by the UK arm of CompuServe/CIS as part of its proprietary closed-system collection of consumer services. The service was proposed by Paul Stanfield, an independent business-to-consumer electronic commerce consultant, to Martin Turner, Product Marketing Director for CIS UK, in August 1994. Turner agreed and the project started in September with rapid market research, product development and sales of online space to major UK retail and catalogue companies. These included WH Smith, Tesco, Virgin/Our Price, Great Universal Stores/GUS, Interflora, Dixons Retail, Past Times, PC World (retailer) and Innovations.
The service launched on Thursday 27th April 1995 with Paul Stanfield’s purchase of a book from the WH Smith shop. This was a repeat of the first formal test of the service on 9th February 1995, which included secure payment and subsequent fulfilment of the order by Royal Mail postal delivery. Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG), the UK’s industry association for e-retailing, believes that the UK’s first national shopping service secure online transaction was the purchase of a WH Smith book from the CompuServe centre.
Approximately 100,000 UK customers had access to the shops at that time and it was British retailers’ first major exposure to the medium. Other retailers joined the service soon after and included Sainsbury’s Wine and Jaguar Cars (branded lifestyle goods).
CompuServe, with its closed private network system, was slow to react to the rapid development of the open World Wide Web and it was not long before major UK retailers started to develop their own web sites independently of CompuServe.
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