Online sales drive White Van Man's demand

Here's a neat example of derived demand, or the knock-on effect of rising sales in one market lifting sales of a related good. As the BBC News site reports, the online sales in the UK are strengthening; this retail channel hit £103bn last year, according to the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index, and are projected to reach 25% of all sales by the end of this year. The distribution channel, or the Place part of the Marketing Mix, becomes crucial, as those goods need delivering, and that need has been credited as a key reason for a big increase in the sales of delivery vans in the first three months of the year - an increase of nearly 25% over the same three months of 2014.