The world is changing. Very soon you, the shopper, will be ordering tailor-made armchairs and dinner plates bearing your own designs direct from Chinese and Indian suppliers over the internet. You will sign up to services that result in high street stores and restaurants bombarding your mobile phone with promotions as you walk past them. And each time you go home and log on to the family PC, online retailers will be waiting, tempting you with products based on where you've been surfing and what you have considered buying online. Welcome to the future. You heard it here first.

Brent Hoberman cannot wait. All of the above is his vision of where the web is leading the consumer and, ten years on from setting up lastminute.com with Martha Lane-Fox, Mr Hoberman's excitement about the potential of the internet is palpable.

“One of my favourite quotes is from Terence Conran, who says that he believes high street stores will become showrooms and all the transactions and purchases will be done over the web,” he says. “We are already starting to see people become far more comfortable selling big-ticket items online and luxury labels who have been too snobbish or worried about their brand to use the internet now see it as a rich experience. I think the downturn we are seeing at the minute will act as a catalyst for online retailers. It will drive more people on to the web looking for deals.”

It is now more than three years since Travelocity, the American online giant, bought lastminute.com for £577million. Mr Hoberman no longer has any direct involvement with the business, but seven months ago he returned to the world of retail with mydeco.com, a furniture website designed to showcase rugs, coffee tables, lights and wardrobes made by anyone and everyone.

A recent move to tap investors for a further £7.35million in funding reflected a feeling in the industry that the business must be suffering from the same severe downturn that has driven a number of high street furniture stores, from ScS Upholstery to Rosebys, into administration so far this year. Mr Hoberman, however, while refusing to be drawn on sales figures, clearly believes that mydeco.com will have a clear advantage when consumers begin to spend again. “With the funding in place,” he says, “we now have a several-year time horizon and that is nice to have in this environment.”

Few would bet against him. When the dot-com bubble burst and lastminute.com shares collapsed, he almost accepted a £35million takeover bid from Amadeus, a Madrid-based rival, before leading a recovery.

“What you have to think about is that you are building a great customer proposition for the long term,” he says. “At some point we will see mass adoption of the web and in that respect mydeco.com should still be in a much stronger position than anyone else.”

His predictions of the dramatic change in the way that consumers will shop is based on what is already beginning to take place elsewhere. For example, Threadless.com, an American company, sells T-shirts carrying the designs of hundreds of consumers who upload them directly on to the website. Small businesses are using the web to order products designed to their own specifications from Chinese and Indian suppliers. And Blyx, a mobile phone company, has launched a service offering consumers discounts at stores and restaurants based on their individual tastes.

According to Mr Hoberman: “People start out thinking: ‘Oh I wouldn't want to get all those text messages.' But so far the only complaints have been about people not getting enough! You will see it going further, with mobile and location-based personalisation services using GPS. You could sign up, walk down a road and have retailers located within a five-minute range pitching for your business. The opportunities are endless.”

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