IT'S CALLED EVOLUTION:

Retailers will be hit by an "asteroid strike" of technological change that will kill off those that fail to adapt, according to Dixons Carphone boss Seb James.

The arrival of household technology that communicates through the internet - the so-called internet of things - would bring a shift in consumer behaviour and the retail landscape as dramatic as that caused by the advent of the internet itself, which led to the closure of thousands of high street stores.

"We are coming to the era of the connected customer, the latest in a series of shifts created by technology," he told the Retail Week Live conference in London. "This shift is going to bump off as many retailers as the last. It will be a total asteroid strike at the heart of retail."

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