As with many aspects of modern life that we take for granted, it’s easy to think of home shopping as a recent phenomenon, made possible by the telephone and the internet. The reality, I suspect, is that it dates from ancient times, when human beings first hit upon the idea of getting someone else to do their bidding. These days, with a few niche exceptions, it involves mutual agreement rather than the lash of a whip, and as technology has developed, the level of interaction between customer and service provider has been reduced to a few clicks of a mouse. That said, the basic idea is the same as it has been for thousands of years. Nevertheless, an important difference appears to be emerging. Whereas home shopping has traditionally been largely a matter of customer service and convenience, it has more recently become an existential necessity for those businesses which have closed their doors physically to customers amidst efforts to control the spread of Covid-19 and as socially distant interaction becomes the new norm. The balance has shifted, and now that Mohammed is no longer able to go to the mountain, the mountain is being forced to find inventive ways to come to him instead.