Personalisation Elements

The objective of collecting visitor information is to develop a profile which describes customer’s interests.  The most common techniques are explicit profiling, implicit profiling, and using legacy data:

Explicit profiling asks each visitor to its site to fill out information and the website is then personalised accordingly e.g. MyYahoo.

Implicit profiling tracks the visitor’s behavior. This technique is usually transparent to the visitor. The users browsing and buying patterns are then assessed.  Amazon would be an example of a company which uses this technique.

Using legacy data accesses legacy data for valuable profile information, such as credit applications and previous purchases.

Personalisation Techniques

Personalisation of a website is concerned with targeting advertisements and promoting products, managing marketing campaigns as well as managing website content.  Although there are two main reasons for personalising a website which are to enhance customer service and/or e-commerce sales.  A personalised e-commerce site is more likely to attract and retain visitors and therefore resulting in the increase of sales. 

Collaborative Filtering

Personalising a website can include using filtering techniques.  An example is ‘Collaborative Filtering’.  Many companies (including Amazon) use this technique to automate the process of recommending products and services to consumers.   

The collaborative filtering systems produce personal recommendations by following three steps.  Firstly they record the preferences of a large sample of people i.e. they gather information on what products they buy using either explicit or implicit ratings.  Secondly they select groups of people whose preferences and tastes are similar to yours.  Finally they then recommend these products to you which other people who are in the same group as you like. For product recommendations, collaborative filtering is most suitable for simple products, such as books, CDs, or videos all of which are popular products on Amazon.

Advantages and Disadvantages

The issue of personalisation can spark a range of opinions.  Some advantages are that personalisation can save time by eliminating repetitive tasks as well as remembering transactional details.  Personalisation also provides better information for its customers by filtering out information which is generally not relevant to a person and therefore providing them with information which is more tailored to their personal interests.

The main disadvantage which people are concerned with is the issue of privacy and security.  Some people don’t want to be identified as this may cause a problem with purchasing presents for people.  Security could cause difficulties because if a company fails to protect its assets and those of its stakeholders then people will not be willing to share anything of value with the firm. People have real reasons to fear that today’s centralized networks are not secure. 

My opinion is that personalisation is a good idea as it not only allows the customer to feel that they have more of a relationship with the company (as the company knows more about them) but also gives you some suggestions as to products which you might be interested in, products which you otherwise would never know about.

Google Search Based Keywords

I typed in ‘www.amazon.co.uk’ into the website search box.  The results which were given did not help me in any way to gather 12 key phrases for my chosen website.  The results were very broad and didn’t really have anything to do with the products which Amazon sell.

Google Insights

I then decided to search on a second website.  I chose ‘Google Insights’.  I searched for ‘www.amazon.co.uk’. 

Google Insights

Google Insights shows the websites popularity over the past 6years through the use of a line chart.  From this chart we can see that there is a peak every Christmas time, although the interest is gradually getting lower as time goes on.  This may be due to the birth of similar websites or more recently the economic recession.   

Google Insights

Also on the Google Insights website there is a section called ‘Search terms’.  This gives the Top 7 searches from people when they are looking for Amazon.co.uk.  This Top 7 list did not help me with this task as the searches were related to the actual website address and not keywords to do with Amazon.  The main searches are misspelled versions of the correct web address. 

KeywordSpy

The third website I searched on was ‘Keyword Spy’. 

KeywordSpy

This website returns results which were widespread and once again don’t really have anything to do with the products which Amazon sell.   

WordStream

The fourth website I tried was ‘Wordstream’.

WordStream

The results which were generated by this website were slightly improved.  As I searched through the list it was evident that this website provided keywords which are more suitable for Amazon.  Some examples are: ‘Music’, ‘DVDS’, ‘Electronics’, ‘Computing’, ‘Books’ and ‘Textbooks’.  These keywords are more appropriate as they are actual products which Amazon sells. 

Google Adwords

The fifth website I tried was the Google Adwords.

Google Adwords

This website generated lots of results although they were very vague and I didn’t find them useful for the task.  They mentioned some words which are suitable for Amazon such as DVD.  I changed the ‘Match Type’ to ‘Broad’, ‘Phrase’ and ‘Exact’ but generally I didn’t find this website useful.

Webconfs

The final website I looked through was webconfs.com.

Webconfs

Out of all of the websites I searched through this was the one which I found most useful for the task.  It gave me keyword suggestions which were more fitting to Amazon.co.uk.  The keywords were products which are sold by Amazon.

Books – When this keyword is typed into Google, Amazon is the 3^rd website on the first page.  It is also one of the top words on webconfs.com as well as Wordstream.  

Cd’s - Appears 5^th website on first page in Google search. 

DVDs – 4^th website on first page in Google search.  Also appears on webconfs.com suggested keywords.  Also appears on Wordstream website. 

Electronics – 2^nd on first page on Google search.  Also appears on Wordstream and webconfs.com.

Pc games – Appears 4^th on first page of Google search.  Also a keyword on webconfs.com.

Software – Appears 4^th on first page of Google search. 

Audio books – 2^nd on first page of Google search.  Also on webconfs.com as a suggested keyword. 

Blu ray – 5^th on the first page of Google search. 

Computer accessories – Appears 2^nd on first page of Google Search. 

Textbooks – 3^rd on first page of Google Search and also appear as a keyword on Wordstream.

Sat Nav – 1^st website on Google search. 

Digital Camera – 8^th on first page of Google search.  Appears on webconfs.com suggested keywords.

This week I explored how easy it was to find the Amazon website using Search Engines.  Therefore I went onto the most popular Search Engine which is ‘Google’. 

Search Engines

The first word I typed into Google was ‘Amazon’.  This is quite a distinct name and as I expected the first result to be returned by the search engine was www.amazon.co.uk. 

Amazon on Google

Then I decided to search for some of the main products which Amazon sell.  The first product I looked up was ‘books’.  The result was Amazon coming 2^nd.  This is understandable as Google books were the first website to be found.  Google is obviously going to promote their own websites first and foremost.    Amazon’s main competitor Play.com did not appear on the first page of results.  Instead they were found on the second page. 

Books on Google

The second keyword I searched for was ‘DVDS’.  This showed Amazon as being 3^rd on the page of results.  Play.com is the first website on the list.  This is not advantageous for Amazon as many potential customers would perhaps click on the first website.

DVDS on Google

The third term I looked up was ‘CD’s’.  The results showed that Amazon actually came 5^th on the list with Play once again being at the top.

Cd's on Google

Paid Listings

Most major search engines have the feature of ‘Paid listings’.  This is when a company agrees to pay the search engine a certain amount of money every time someone clicks on their listing.  Sometimes these are referred to ‘Pay-per-click’ or ‘Cost-per-click’ advertising. These listings generate revenue for search engines.

Search engines Paid Listings

Google Adwords

Google Adwords

1. Google Adwords Homepage.
2. How Google Adwords works.
3. Searching for prices for keywords e.g. books.

Google Adword Prices

4. Results of ‘Book’ search.  As you can see there are many different related keywords all at different prices.  Prices are per click. 

As you can see from the screenshots below Amazon use the Google Adwords feature. 

Books Adword

Cd's Adword

DVD's Adword

In conclusion Amazon is very easy to find through the use of Search Engines although they could perhaps spend more money on advertising for DVDS and CDs as Play.com currently have the lead.

Cloud Computing

 “Cloud computing is perhaps the most talked-about shift in the technology industry today. The concept of running applications from the cloud is quickly evolving from a futuristic vision to a commercially viable alternative for mainstream business. A recent survey of global 2,000 companies revealed that 30 percent are already using cloud infrastructure to host their applications, and another 20 percent plan to do so by next year.”

Bill Loumpouridis

http://billloumpouridis.sys-con.com/

The term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet.  This is because in computer network diagrams the internet is often illustrated as a cloud.

The ‘Cloud’ in Cloud computing can either be private or public. A public cloud is one which sells services to anyone on the Internet. (Amazon is currently the largest public cloud provider).  A private cloud is a data centre that supplies hosted services to a limited number of people.  Whether the cloud is public or private the purpose is to grant easy access to various computing resources and services.

Cloud computing can be divided into three categories:

• Applications
• Platforms
• Infrastructure

 Applications:

By running business applications over the internet from centralized servers rather than from on-site servers this allows companies to cut down on various costs e.g. maintenance, licensing and hardware.   E.g. Google, Netsuits, Salesforce

Platforms:

Platforms serve as an interface for users to access applications which are provided by partners or in some cases the customers. E.g. Amazon, Microsoft, Google

Infrastructure:

This is to do with the physical storage space as well as the processing capabilities. E.g. Amazon, Google, IBM.

Advantages of cloud computing:

• Speed: Building your application in the cloud is five times faster.
• Cost: As previously mentioned, it allows companies to cut down on maintenance, licensing and hardware costs.  Cloud-based e-commerce also eliminates the need for expensive CRM and e-commerce integration projects.
• Access your data at all times – not just while in the office
• Customer Focus: Running your e-commerce business ‘in the cloud’ helps make it easier to do business with customers by simplifying interactions and driving down transaction costs.
• Reliability and Security: Actually improves due to centralization of data and increased security-focused resources.
• Pay-as-you-go: Users are only charged for the amount of traffic, bandwidth, and memory used.  This pay-for-what-you-use method resembles the way electricity and fuel is consumed and therefore it is sometimes referred to as utility computing.

Disadvantages of cloud computing:

• Loss of control – You trust a key part of your business to someone else.
• Dependent on internet connection – Internet connectivity isn’t completely stable and reliable.  It could take a few more years for cloud computing to be completely accessible anywhere.

Growth Of Cloud Computing

 Amazon’s Cloud Computing:

 Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud allows customers to rent computers on which to run their own computer applications.

 “Amazon EC2’s simple web service interface allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction. It provides you with complete control of your computing resources and lets you run on Amazon’s proven computing environment. Amazon EC2 reduces the time required to obtain and boot new server instances to minutes, allowing you to quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as your computing requirements change. Amazon EC2 changes the economics of computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you actually use.”

Amazon Cloud Computing

There are two different areas of SCM.  They are upstream and downstream supply chains.  Upstream is concerned with transactions between the organisation (Amazon) and its suppliers.  Downstream is to do with transactions between an organisation (Amazon) and its customers.

Supply Chain Management

A push-pull-system within the business industry describes the movement of a product or information between two subjects.  Essentially the consumers usually “pull” the products or information they demand for their needs, while the supplier which in this case is Amazon “pushes” them toward its consumers.

I feel that Amazon is more of a “push” system.  A push system has emphasis on the distribution of products to passive customers.  Amazon basically “push” the information about their products to their customers. In addition to this, Amazon currently sends emails to do with promotions and special offers along with advertisements to their customers. 

Push & Pull

Amazon is a business which is only available for making purchases online.  They have no physical stores which consumers can buy their products from.  Since Amazon is only an ecommerce organisation this provides them with the opportunity of many of the activities within the supply chain being conducted electronically.  An example would be the reduction of paper documents as order confirmations are sent to consumers via email. 

With Amazon taking orders over the internet this means that it will be fast, inexpensive and accurate and therefore resulting in expediting the payment delivery systems. 

Although there are numerous benefits to Amazon being an ecommerce business there are some drawbacks which are evident.  Supply chains can be very long especially when many internal and external partners are involved.  This is especially true for Amazon as they sell thousands upon thousands of products all from different suppliers. 

Within the supply chain there can be many benefits.  Some are tangible and others are intangible.  Some examples of tangible benefits for Amazon would be personnel reduction i.e. Amazon does not have to employ as many workers as they would if they had physical shops to attend to, Maintenance reduction – once again having no physical shops to attend to allows Amazon to save money.  The only maintenance work they are concerned with is of the computer systems. An example of an intangible benefit is globalization.  This allows Amazon to have customer’s world wide.  They are not restricted to people who just live within a short distance from them.  Therefore this results in their profits being increased. 

Vertical integration vs. disintegration vs. virtual integration

Vertical integration is the strategy of incorporating all aspects of management, production, sales, and distribution within a business in order to become less vulnerable to outside forces. 

Virtual integration is where the majority of supply chain activities are undertaken and controlled outside the organisation by independent third parties.

In my opinion Amazon are concerned with virtual integration.  This is because they have total reliance on linked third parties and a close relationship with their suppliers.  This is because Amazon does not manufacture their own products.  They sell other peoples products therefore they need to be in close contact with their suppliers. 

Value Networks

A value network is a complex set of social and technical resources. Value networks work together via relationships to create social goods or economic value.  There are two types of value networks.  Internal and External. 

Internal value networks focus on key activities, processes and relationships that cut across internal boundaries, such as order fulfillment, innovation, lead processing, or customer support.  Amazon has a very extensive customer support service.  They are available on the phone or via their website.  Their website is segmented into different sections allowing it easy to find a solution to your query.

External value networks include customers or recipients, intermediaries, stakeholders, complementors, open innovation networks and suppliers.

Porter's Five Forces

The threat of substitute products and services

This is to do with the issue of a product being replaced by another product and therefore your initial product is made redundant.

This can be caused when competitors sell similar items as you at very competitive prices.  Amazon’s main opponent is Play.com as they sell very similar items such as books, DVDs and music.  Play previously had an advantage over Amazon concerning the fact that they offered free delivery on everything although recently Amazon now also offer free delivery on everything i.e. there is no minimum order required to receive free delivery.

Amazon’s main concern is if their customers are able to find alternative products which provide overall savings and are therefore more economical than theirs.

Amazon’s products are easily obtainable elsewhere as they are not bespoke to the customer and are available in many different high street shops as well as other organisations online.  Therefore Amazon has to constantly ensure that they have the most avant-garde and up to date products available to their customers otherwise the people purchasing from them will look elsewhere.

The threat of the entry of new competitors (barriers to entry)

This is when a brand new competitor enters your line of business.  This may lead to them eroding some of your customers.  This is because a new business starting out does not have any existing customers and if they are determined on remaining within the industry they need to swiftly gain a share in the market.

As Amazon is part of a large industry their market is going to be harder to break into.  Therefore I feel that not many budding entrepreneurs are brave enough to start a new business which would compete with Amazon. Although Amazon obviously has rivals in the industry I don’t feel these are significant enough at this stage to make an impact on their sales figures.

Amazon is a well established and trusted company, although the threat of new competitors is always a possibility.  Therefore Amazon have to keep on top of their game and make the entire shopping experience with them a stress-free, enjoyable task otherwise competitors could home in on this weakness and therefore exploit their new business at the same time.

 The intensity of competitive rivalry

As previously mentioned Play.com is Amazon’s main competitor in the UK.  Play have broadened the range of products in which they sell and have ventured into selling clothing, gadgets, mobile phones, toys and tickets.  They are constantly evolving and keeping up to date with the products which their customers wish to buy.  Although Amazon does technically have a bigger range of merchandise available to their customers they currently do not have the option of buying tickets via their website.  This could be a potential weakness for Amazon. 

 Tactics are often used by rivals within the same industry to try to ensure their constancy within the market.  Some tactics include reducing prices, increasing the amount of advertising and improving their customer services.

The bargaining power of customers/buyers

This is concerning the amount of power customers have over the company with issues such as prices, quality and services available.  Powerful customers will be able to ask for higher quality or improved service at the same price or simply for a better price. Principally it means that the more powerful your customers are the less profit you will make.

Amazon‘s customers don’t possess the power to change the prices, quality of goods or the services available.  This is mainly because of the great number of customers Amazon have and therefore the more customers they have the less commercial power they each have.

Amazon want to keep their strong relationship with their customers so they send out frequent emails alerting them to new products which they feel would interest them.

 The bargaining power of suppliers

This is to do with the matter of how much power Amazon’s suppliers have.  It is concerned with whether or not they can raise prices or reduce services without the fear of losing Amazon’s business.  Amazon perceptibly has a large amount of suppliers because of the extensive and diverse range of products they sell.  Therefore they would generally have a lot more power over the suppliers than a lot of businesses.  Amazon is very successful and suppliers would want to provide Amazon with their goods.  This therefore means that Amazon can negotiate a better deal which appeals to them more.  If the suppliers are not happy with the prices Amazon is offering them for their goods they will by and large lose Amazon’s business.  This would not be an advantageous decision.

Amazons terms and conditions are available via http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=footer_cou?ie=UTF8&nodeId=1040616.

Their terms and conditions are subcategorized into conditions relating to:

• Your use of Amazon.co.uk
• Sale of products to you
• Both your use of Amazon.co.uk and sales to you
• Notice and Procedure for making claims of Infringement.
• Notice and Procedure for Notifying
• Defamatory Content.

By clicking on these subcategories you are directed to more related information.  From reading through these terms I feel that they are very reasonable and find no observable problems.

Amazon T&C

Amazon offers a very reputable returns policy.  Customers who are unhappy with their purchase can return their item within 30 days for a full refund.

“Our 30-day* returns guarantee means that if for any reason you are unhappy with your purchase, you can return it to us in its original condition within 30 days of the date you received the item, unopened (with any seals and shrink-wrap intact, clothing must have labels attached) and we will issue a full refund for the price you paid for the item”

Returns support centre

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_ln_rr_ri/?nodeId=1161002

Returns Support Centre

Returns Support Centre Wizard

The Returns support centre is a step by step guide for returning an unwanted item to Amazon.co.uk.  You are asked to sign in using your unique username and password and from there you are guided through the process of making arrangements for a particular item to be returned. 

Play.com is Amazon’s main UK competitor.  Therefore I have researched Play’s Terms and Conditions and their returns policy.  

Play.com T&C's

Play.com Returns Policy

Both Amazon and Play have very similar T&C’s.  Although their returns policy differs slightly.  Amazon offers a 30day money back guarantee whereas Play only offers a 28 day money back guarantee.  Both companies only refund the customer the cost of sending an item back if they made a mistake with their order.  Otherwise the customer is out of pocket for returning the item.

 Question 8

Encryption is the process of encoding personal information for secure transmission across the Internet.

Registration on Amazon.co.uk is very straightforward and clear cut.  The information required by Amazon is all encrypted.  By encrypting data it allows them to protect the customer’s personal information from malicious sources.  Encrypting data is when the information is rearranged into an order which only allocated people can understand.   A secure website uses a lock icon on the bottom right hand side of the webpage (see screenshot below)

Registration

Registration

Secure Lock Icon

 Question 9

Cookies are small files which are stored on a user’s computer. They are designed to hold a modest amount of data specific to a particular client and website and can be accessed either by the web server or the client computer. This allows the server to deliver a page tailored to a particular user.  Amazon use cookies on their website as this allows them to recognise their customers and provide specific features tailored to them e.g. 1 click purchasing and personal recommendations.

Amazon's Cookies

There are some websites which may be classed as competitors for Amazon.  These websites include the following:

• Play.com – This website is possibly Amazons largest competitor in the UK simply because they sell similar products at competitive rates and also have the bonus of giving customers free delivery on anything they buy.
• HMV.com- this website mainly sells music and movies but they also sell some books although their range is not extensive like Amazons.  They also have the bonus of free UK delivery.
• Whsmith – They sell books, DVDs, music and games etc.  In other words they sell all of the core Amazon products.  They currently do not have the feature of free p&p on anything.  Their minimum spend for free delivery is £15.
• Tesco.com/Asda.com – Supermarket websites are competitors of Amazon as they sell books, CD’s, DVDs and games.  Their main market for such products is the parents who perhaps while ordering their groceries online also buy their children a new DVD, book etc.
• Bn.com – All of the above websites are competitors for Amazon.co.uk but for Amazon.com their main competitor is Barnes and Noble. 

Visitor Numbers

Amazon

According to www.quarkbase.com:

Unique Visitors: 2,465,831 per month on Amazon.co.uk

Unique Visitors: 69,493,618 per month on Amazon.com

According to http://www.statbrain.com:

Estimated number of visits for Amazon.co.uk = 3,975,862 visits per day

Estimated number of visits for Amazon.com = 8,253,823 visits per day

Amazon v Amazon

Play.com

Unique Visitors: 160,570 per month according to quarkbase.com

Estimated number of visits for Play.com = 885,399 visits per day according to statbrain.com

Amazon v Play

 Question 5

To make a purchase on Amazon:

• Type in the web address ‘www.amazon.co.uk’.  This then connects you to the UK version of Amazon.
• Search for your item in the search box (Figure A).  This then searches through Amazon’s database to find products which contain your key words.
• When you are buying an item you click on the ‘Add to Shopping Basket’ (Figure B).  This then adds your item into a virtual shopping basket (Figure C).
• When you have finished searching for your items you ‘Proceed to Checkout’ (Figure D).  This then brings the customer to the log in page (Figure E).  This is where customers have their own individual username and password.  This log in allows the user to quickly proceed in buying the item as their address along with payment method is saved.   
• Once Amazon has received your order, they dispatch your item and send it via a courier service. 

Figures A-C

Figures D & E

 

 

 

Question 6

Amazon currently sends their customer’s emails about products which they feel would be of interest to them.  A new channel for Amazon would be Digital Television Access.  I feel that this would benefit the company greatly.  If a products advertisement was shown on the TV and a customer was able to buy the product via the red button on their remote I feel Amazon’s business would increase significantly.

Amazon International Sites

 Question 2

Number of Employees:

From this information from wikipedia we can see that in 2008 there were 20,500 employees currently working for Amazon. 

Amazon By the Numbers

A recent breakdown of the money involved within Amazon shows the following:

$11.1 billion: Media group sales, 2008

$19.1 billion: Total Amazon sales, 2008

$1.36 billion: Free cash flow, 2008

$630 million: Loss on shipping, 2008

This information is available from  http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6635629.html

Financial Times Information 

The following information was collected by carrying out a search on the Financial Times website (www.FT.com).

Amazon first quarter sales data (2009):

Amazon underlined its ability to thrive amid the global consumer slump on Thursday, announcing an 18 per cent increase in first-quarter revenues to $4.89bn, and a 24 per cent increase in earnings to $177m.

Excluding the impact of the stronger dollar on the overseas businesses, which account for almost half of its sales, Amazon’s net sales would have grown 25 per cent against the same period last year.

The company’s robust performance is being sustained by its ability to offer prices on goods that compete with conventional discount retailers, combined with free shipping, and the comparatively prosperous demographics of online customers.

The quarter also saw a dramatic 38 per cent increase in Amazon’s sales of non-media products such as electronics, clothing and food, which now account for 42 per cent of worldwide net sales, compared with 36 per cent last year.

Second Quarter Data(2009) :

Amazon saw its sales increase 14 per cent to $4.65bn during its second quarter.  The company’s North American sales rose 13 per cent to $2.45bn, while international sales in the UK, France, Germany, Japan and China rose 16 per cent to $2.2bn.

The sales growth was driven by a 35 per cent increase in consumer electronics and other general merchandise sales, rather than the books and media sales upon which the internet retailer built its reputation.

Question 3

Is the web the only channel to market for this business?

Amazon currently does not have any other methods of business other than sales made via their website.

A short history on amazon.com

Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com in 1994. Originally the business was based out of his garage in his Bellevue, Washington home. A businessman by the name of Nick Hanauer believed in Bezos’ idea and decided to invest $40,000 in the venture. When Amazon first decided to go online, its layout was not as flashy as it is today. In fact, the site looked very plain and unattractive to most visitors, causing the business to start out on shaky ground. A man by the name of Tom Alburg decided to invest $100,000 in Amazon in 1995, which helped the company fund a better looking website and hosting capabilities. When people began purchasing books from Amazon, Bezos was in awe that he had customers from all over the country, not just Washington State, purchasing books.

The complete history on amzon.com is available at http://www.essortment.com/hobbies/historyamazonc_ttas.htm

Channel Chain Map

From this information we can gather that 18.3 million households in the UK (70 per cent) had Internet access in 2009. This works out as an increase of just under 2 million households (11 per cent) over the last year and 4 million households (28 per cent) since 2006.

From this bar chart we can also see the trends towards internet users choosing a broadband connection.  We can see that over 60% of all UK households had a broadband connection in 2009.  Of those households with Internet access, 90 per cent had a broadband connection in 2009.

 Regional trends of internet usage

 Statistically the region with the highest level of internet access was London, with 80 per cent. The region with the lowest access level was Scotland, with 62 per cent.

Who uses the internet?

 The general stereotypical conception about who the majority of internet users are tends to lean towards the fact that they are young males.  Although from statistics available online we can see that 35 to 49-year-olds are the biggest web audience, making up 26% of internet users.   The second largest group of internet users us that of the 50 years and over.  They make up a fifth of all internet users.  This was closely followed by the 25-34 age groups with 18.6%.

The ratio between male and female internet users is now almost 50/50.

Method of connecting to internet

 Most internet users connect to the internet via a home computer (61%) although games consoles and TV set top boxes are becoming increasingly popular. Approximately 3 million people in the UK now use game consoles for internet surfing.   

The amount of people connecting to the internet through set top boxes also saw an increase of 1.5million people in a recent survey.

Statistics from:

www.statistics.gov.uk

http://www.internetworldstats.com/eu/uk.htm