Despite being branded innovative and 'world leading' by luminaries including Next's chief executive Lord Wolfson recently, the sector still struggles to shake off the distrust clearly placed upon it by a fusty old City.
We're referring, of course, to the recent and seemingly inexplicable obsession exhibited by Asos for former Marks & Spencer executives. First the pursuit of Kate Bostock, followed by her untimely departure after just six months (let's be entirely honest here, didn't we all know that was a culture clash waiting to happen?).
Then, on Wednesday, Asos appointed former Marks & Spencer group finance director Ian Dyson as senior non-executive.
So what has Ian Dyson got to offer a young, funky and entrepreneur-driven firm like Asos? A Marks & Spencer history lesson raises more questions than answers.
Dyson's responsibilities at the retailer were extended to include finance and group operations in March 2008 - making him managing director of the business in all but name and reporting directly to Sir Stuart Rose who at the time was busy promoting himself from chief executive to chairman.
From that point on Marks & Spencer entered what can only be described as a period of stagnation - in both sales and profit - despite drawing up its long term '2020' vision that would take the firm to key international markets, brush up its ethical stance and engage with customers online.
So while Laura Wade-Gery is valiantly trying to make up for lost time, the inescapable truth is that the time was lost under the former management and not a little dithering when the new management came in three years ago. We actually think she might be getting somewhere.
But the multi-channel strategy between 2005 and 2011 amounted to a long-term partnership deal with Amazon to fulfill M&S's online needs but which only served to hold the business back.
By 2010 M&S Direct accounted for £413, or about 10 per cent of clothing and home sales - which actually was not too bad if we compare and contrast with one of its closest rivals. Sales at John Lewis Direct in the same year were also roughly 10 per cent of sales at £314 million (we're estimating this from their stated gross sales figure, which includes VAT, of £393 million).
But M&S's poorly structured strategy and lack of vision was producing a much slower trajectory. In the year to January 2013, John Lewis reported online revenue had more than doubled in three years to £767 million (again this is an estimate based on extrapolations from total sales, and based on gross online sales of £959 million). It had surged past an unprepared M&S which reported online sales of £651.8 million during a the same period.
That is almost double the amount of growth at John Lewis versus Marks & Spencer in three years.
M&S was not alone in having missed the boat - you can also count the majority of the rest of the high street too.
But Marks & Spencer had the money and access to wise consultants and the benefit of two main rivals that were doing exactly what was required. But it still seemed content to watch Next and John Lewis preparing to harvest online market share while it concentrated on sprucing up stores and other such deck chair shuffling.
To get back to the original point, a better online strategy alone would have made the company management look - as Next and John Lewis have done - like clever, 21st century executives and that is chief among the company's other misses has left them looking anything but.
So what Asos chief executive Nick Robertson last month described as the 'different cultures' at work in Marks & Spencer and in Asos we all knew exactly what he meant. Faster, more fleet of foot, fewer layers of management, fewer, faster meetings, fewer people in those meetings, fewer mouths to feed, people getting their hands dirty and taking more responsibility.
But company culture is also about having the vision to recognise the pace of change, of listening to young and old shoppers alike as they explain that things are about to start happening differently. Something M&S in those few years at the end of the last decade stopped doing.
So the obsession at Asos with Marks & Spencer must run deeper - and it is this. Asos needs to propel itself into the dotcom mainstream (What? It isn't there already we hear some people say?). It needs to be there because it needs to be able to attract better staff away from the dot.com megafirms like Google to stay for longer periods. And it needs to be able to pay them and show them it has the resources to fulfill their visions.
To do that it badly needs to lift itself from the AIM stock market list where its stock now resides and into the FTSE 100 where it belongs.
It is partly a factor of reputation but mostly of money and investment. It is one of Britain's biggest dot.com success stories and yet it still cannot attract bright young things and persuade them away from the brain-fest - and big bucks - of San Francisco, California and Silicon Valley.
So here is the rub. To do that it needs City heads to be willing to wrap around its business - not just clever little private equity dance partners but big, stock-market money. And the City loves the old ways, the trusted patrician hands, the known knowns of big blue chip names like Marks & Spencer.
It is a sad fact, but the British establishment in the big banks still does not trust the kind of entrepreneurial dotcom businesses that Asos personifies. But without them Asos will struggle to tackle the medium term challenges which it can only do through investment and fighting its way to the next level.
It may still survive and even thrive without that money. But it clearly sees now as its opportunity to evolve to a new level and its obsession with hauling in some old faces from a firm that failed to properly tackle the online question when peers such as Next and John Lewis were pouring money into it.
Quite where it leaves the rest of the dotcom industry is perfectly clear. We can think of other examples of firms which have drafted in fusty bricks-and-mortar executives from trusted blue chip names (The Hut anyone?) and we are beginning to understand why.
The problem is that if you want a little investment, you have a chance this side of the Atlantic with small boutique investors. If you want a lot, you have to play by the City's rules even if that does not necessarily even help your business develop a strategic vision. Even if that means appointing executives - or non-executives - from times gone by because City big wigs don't even trust you and your business.
No wonder our fast growing firms seem to stagnate at the 'small to medium' stage as hurdles - and funding demands - become harder to hit.
But if the City does not change its attitude to dotcom we will see more of our best firms heading over to the US to seek much needed money there but while also facing the challenge of competing with North American home-grown talent. No guessing who's going to get the fair hearing there - and it won't be some bunch of guys from several thousand miles away with funny accents.
If the City doesn't start to wise up to the brave new world of dotcom and trust its instincts once again, the sector is facing stagnation and a whole new crop of disillusioned talent looking for somewhere else to flex their skills.
So what has Ian Dyson got to offer a young, funky and entrepreneur-driven firm like Asos? A Marks & Spencer history lesson raises more questions than answers.
Dyson's responsibilities at the retailer were extended to include finance and group operations in March 2008 - making him managing director of the business in all but name and reporting directly to Sir Stuart Rose who at the time was busy promoting himself from chief executive to chairman.
From that point on Marks & Spencer entered what can only be described as a period of stagnation - in both sales and profit - despite drawing up its long term '2020' vision that would take the firm to key international markets, brush up its ethical stance and engage with customers online.
So while Laura Wade-Gery is valiantly trying to make up for lost time, the inescapable truth is that the time was lost under the former management and not a little dithering when the new management came in three years ago. We actually think she might be getting somewhere.
But the multi-channel strategy between 2005 and 2011 amounted to a long-term partnership deal with Amazon to fulfill M&S's online needs but which only served to hold the business back.
By 2010 M&S Direct accounted for £413, or about 10 per cent of clothing and home sales - which actually was not too bad if we compare and contrast with one of its closest rivals. Sales at John Lewis Direct in the same year were also roughly 10 per cent of sales at £314 million (we're estimating this from their stated gross sales figure, which includes VAT, of £393 million).
But M&S's poorly structured strategy and lack of vision was producing a much slower trajectory. In the year to January 2013, John Lewis reported online revenue had more than doubled in three years to £767 million (again this is an estimate based on extrapolations from total sales, and based on gross online sales of £959 million). It had surged past an unprepared M&S which reported online sales of £651.8 million during a the same period.
That is almost double the amount of growth at John Lewis versus Marks & Spencer in three years.
M&S was not alone in having missed the boat - you can also count the majority of the rest of the high street too.
But Marks & Spencer had the money and access to wise consultants and the benefit of two main rivals that were doing exactly what was required. But it still seemed content to watch Next and John Lewis preparing to harvest online market share while it concentrated on sprucing up stores and other such deck chair shuffling.
To get back to the original point, a better online strategy alone would have made the company management look - as Next and John Lewis have done - like clever, 21st century executives and that is chief among the company's other misses has left them looking anything but.
So what Asos chief executive Nick Robertson last month described as the 'different cultures' at work in Marks & Spencer and in Asos we all knew exactly what he meant. Faster, more fleet of foot, fewer layers of management, fewer, faster meetings, fewer people in those meetings, fewer mouths to feed, people getting their hands dirty and taking more responsibility.
But company culture is also about having the vision to recognise the pace of change, of listening to young and old shoppers alike as they explain that things are about to start happening differently. Something M&S in those few years at the end of the last decade stopped doing.
So the obsession at Asos with Marks & Spencer must run deeper - and it is this. Asos needs to propel itself into the dotcom mainstream (What? It isn't there already we hear some people say?). It needs to be there because it needs to be able to attract better staff away from the dot.com megafirms like Google to stay for longer periods. And it needs to be able to pay them and show them it has the resources to fulfill their visions.
To do that it badly needs to lift itself from the AIM stock market list where its stock now resides and into the FTSE 100 where it belongs.
It is partly a factor of reputation but mostly of money and investment. It is one of Britain's biggest dot.com success stories and yet it still cannot attract bright young things and persuade them away from the brain-fest - and big bucks - of San Francisco, California and Silicon Valley.
So here is the rub. To do that it needs City heads to be willing to wrap around its business - not just clever little private equity dance partners but big, stock-market money. And the City loves the old ways, the trusted patrician hands, the known knowns of big blue chip names like Marks & Spencer.
It is a sad fact, but the British establishment in the big banks still does not trust the kind of entrepreneurial dotcom businesses that Asos personifies. But without them Asos will struggle to tackle the medium term challenges which it can only do through investment and fighting its way to the next level.
It may still survive and even thrive without that money. But it clearly sees now as its opportunity to evolve to a new level and its obsession with hauling in some old faces from a firm that failed to properly tackle the online question when peers such as Next and John Lewis were pouring money into it.
Quite where it leaves the rest of the dotcom industry is perfectly clear. We can think of other examples of firms which have drafted in fusty bricks-and-mortar executives from trusted blue chip names (The Hut anyone?) and we are beginning to understand why.
The problem is that if you want a little investment, you have a chance this side of the Atlantic with small boutique investors. If you want a lot, you have to play by the City's rules even if that does not necessarily even help your business develop a strategic vision. Even if that means appointing executives - or non-executives - from times gone by because City big wigs don't even trust you and your business.
No wonder our fast growing firms seem to stagnate at the 'small to medium' stage as hurdles - and funding demands - become harder to hit.
But if the City does not change its attitude to dotcom we will see more of our best firms heading over to the US to seek much needed money there but while also facing the challenge of competing with North American home-grown talent. No guessing who's going to get the fair hearing there - and it won't be some bunch of guys from several thousand miles away with funny accents.
If the City doesn't start to wise up to the brave new world of dotcom and trust its instincts once again, the sector is facing stagnation and a whole new crop of disillusioned talent looking for somewhere else to flex their skills.
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