Santa's grotto as big as five football pitches

THIS is the 21st century version of Santa's grotto. Between now and Christmas Eve, more than 150,000 gifts, from Jamie Oliver cookbooks to Dr Who board games, will pass through this vast warehouse, on their way from the factory to the table under the tree.

Five times the size of a football pitch, it is Scotland's biggest contribution to the online shopping boom - a consequence of our demand for an easier, cheaper alternative to the high street shop.

Internet retail sales in Britain amounted to 13 billion in the first half of 2006, 40 per cent higher than in the same period last year. Yet the impact of our rush towards "e-tailing" - including the creation of this 300,000 sq ft "fulfilment centre" in Gourock for Amazon customers - has yet to be fully understood.

What effect will the embrace of home shopping have on the traditional high street store? And does ordering using the computer really reduce our impact on the environment, as internet retailers claim?

Andrew Watson, of the Federation of Small Business in Scotland, worries about the future of some shops: "This is part of the globalisation agenda which is facing small traders and of course there will be winners and losers. Some people will choose convenience and price of the internet over their local shop.

"But some things are more convenient because they can be purchased straight away. At some point down the line they might not be able to go out and buy a pint of milk right away because the nearest shop is miles away. That, in reality, is the choice that consumers are making."

Amazon, the world's biggest online retailer, has created more than 1,000 full-time jobs in Scotland with the development here of two of its three UK distribution warehouses - known as customer fulfilment centres.

The biggest is in Gourock, Inverclyde. Where thousands of workers once forged Glasgow's status as Britain's second city by hammering and welding on Clyde ships, their grandchildren now fold CDs and books into parcels. In Glenrothes, a similar 200,000 sq ft warehouse, supplemented by a 150,000 sq ft overspill during busy periods, handles mostly larger items such as garden tools and dinner sets.

From the moment you click "buy" on the Amazon website, a command-chain of track-suited workers somewhere in Scotland is sorting your order into boxes until it trundles down a chute and onto the back of a lorry.

But while this type of shopping lacks the glamour and excitement of the pre-Christmas hunt through department stores, the convenience of web shopping has captured Britain's imagination in a way unseen since the arrival of the self-service supermarket four decades ago. Yesterday Amazon recorded its fastest-ever pre-order sellout item - the new 179.99 Nintendo Wii console - which ran out in seven minutes. And a Mintel survey in July confirmed that UK shoppers were the most enthusiastic in the EU about internet shopping, having spent 9.8 billion online in 2005, outstripping Germany and France.

The Interactive Media in Retail Group, which represents companies including Homebase, MasterCard, Tesco and Wickes, says the phenomenon is delivering significant environmental benefits that are not being recognised or harnessed to their full potential. Its "go green, go online" campaign claimed that "shopping online makes a real contribution towards protecting the planet by reducing the amount of energy and materials you use".

But does the claim stack up? At Gourock, a round-the-clock stream of lorries thunders in and out of Amazon's warehouse car park and onwards towards depots, airports and railheads. And the location does not necessarily mean a reduction in the number of road miles travelled by our Christmas gifts. In fact, it can mean they make a round trip of several hundred miles.

"When you click your order, the distribution centre is chosen by inventory, not your location," explained Alan Lyall, Amazon's energetic head of European operations "If the items you want are all available in one centre, that is where they will be shipped from in order to best achieve our delivery guarantee." So a customer ordering in Lerwick is as likely to receive a delivery originating from Luton as they are from Gourock.

In New York, the rise of e- tailing created a surge in foam packaging, which was too light to be recycled economically. Mary Rayner, a spokeswoman for the Ethical Consumer magazine, said: "Some goods arrive from internet shops completely over-packaged. However, the internet does give small, ethically-drive companies a space to trade that they wouldn't have on the high street."

The IMRG says packaging is a minor concern compared with the amount of energy saved by using computers at home rather than driving to shops. But most travel in retail is for grocery shopping, and more than three-quarters of supermarket customers have never even tried home delivery.

Amazon believes the future lies in its expansion as a "find-anything" shop. In the United States its customers can order anything from cat food and milk to car parts and furniture.

"We cannot entirely predict what will happen, but we're fairly sure customers are unlikely to chose less convenience or higher prices," said Mr Lyall.

AMAZON BY NUMBERS

500,000

The area in square feet occupied by Amazon's two distribution centres in Scotland, at Gourock, Inverclyde, and Glenrothes, Fife

480,000

The number of items delivered by Amazon last Christmas - a figure expected to be "blown away" this year, with deliveries closer to one million

1998

The year Amazon went online in Britain

2.17billion

The value of sales to customers in Europe and Japan in the third quarter of this year. This compares with 330 million for the whole of 2001

15

The gap in minutes between lorries leaving Amazon distribution centres on its busiest days

5

The area in numbers of football pitches of the Gourock distribution centre

200

The number of countries which received items sorted and packaged by Amazon in Scotland

61,000,000

The total of registered customers worldwide

26

The expected percentage increase in sales in 2006, compared with last year

12,000

The number of Amazon employees worldwide

1994

The year Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in Seattle, Washington

15

How many minutes before the residents of the remote Atlantic archipelago Tristan da Cunha placed their first online order with Amazon after being granted a UK postcode (TDCU 1ZZ) in 2005