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What Might Macneil Have Said about Using eBay?

  • Chapter
Changing Concepts of Contract

Part of the book series: Palgrave Macmillan Socio-Legal Studies ((PSLS))

Abstract

In this chapter I want to look at computer-mediated consumer purchase contracts. These are contracts made in the world of e-commerce using the websites of companies such as Amazon which, so far as consumers are concerned, exist only as electronic presences, and the online presences of conventional ‘bricks and mortar’ retail establishments. In 2011, the value of retail online sales in the UK was £50.34 billion, representing 12.0 per cent of UK retail trade. In 2008, the equivalent figure was 8.6 per cent of retail sales. In the US, the market share of online sales is 9.0 per cent (Centre for Retail Research, 2011). In Australia and New Zealand, the figure is rather lower at just under 7 per cent, but this is predicted, as in the UK, the US and Europe, to carry on growing (Frost & Sullivan, 2012). The growth of online shopping, previously fuelled by the increase in domestic broadband accessibility, now unsurprisingly mirrors the popularity in ownership of mobile devices that can access the internet; in the UK just over a quarter of adults own a smartphone, and in the US that figure rises to over a third (Ofcom, 2011; Pew Research Centre, 2011).

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Authors
  1. Sally Wheeler
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Lancaster University, UK

    David Campbell

  2. London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

    Linda Mulcahy

  3. Queen’s University Belfast, UK

    Sally Wheeler

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© 2013 Sally Wheeler

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Wheeler, S. (2013). What Might Macneil Have Said about Using eBay?. In: Campbell, D., Mulcahy, L., Wheeler, S. (eds) Changing Concepts of Contract. Palgrave Macmillan Socio-Legal Studies. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-26927-0_3

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