Sir; I am intrigued by the progress in the sale of food over the internet, and sometimes I get the feeling that it could all be a somewhat temporary phenomenon, even with the big boys. I suspect no one has made any profit out of it yet, and I also suspect the market is far more volatile than anyone has yet suspected. Even ventures that are going pretty well are buoyed up by the novelty factor at the moment and that could wear off at any moment. And food sales are being undermined by eating out anyway. It's a truly dodgy business model because we have to buy food, but we do not have to buy it over the internet. Ever. There simply is no sound base. It would be fascinating to learn just how sales change from week to week from a store based venture. I bet they lurch about amazingly in comparison to the steady sales at the store. My wife and I internet shopped from both Iceland and Tesco for quite a while. And then my wife woke up one morning and decided she just wanted to go shopping. She worked out that she could actually shop at Tesco in less time than it took her to switch on the computer and plod through clicking for what she wanted. She wanted the stuff that very morning, not the following day. And furthermore, she wanted the reality of the shopping experience. Not virtual reality. David Rodgers Wokingham {{LETTERS }}