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Cyber Selling: It's Wintel's Latest Fool's Gold

By Will Anderson

Electronic commerce! Really? Commerce implies someone is making money. Even the most heralded enterprise, amazon.com, isn't making any bucks. Is anyone? If this is such a hot sales channel, why aren't there more success stories (other than high stock prices driven primarily by investors who need something to talk about at cocktail parties).

It's dirt cheap to get into business on the Web. Cost of entry is the least expensive sales channel around. There are companies, such as the Internet Mall, that can manage all the transaction costs and billing (including tax and shipment of merchandise to any location around the world) for about 100 bucks in set-up costs and a small percentage of each sale. You build your Web site and when the customer pushes the buy button, a secure third party with all your current products and pricing right in their database manages the transaction. Now you can sell to the millions of people on the Net. Piece of cake, right? So, why no new generation of e-commerce millionaires?

I've been trying to think about what type of products might sell well on the Net. Groceries? Certainly not. Hardware (I don't mean computer hardware; but even PCs are commonly sold to lunatic-fringe cyber enthusiasts over the phone)? No. My Saturday chores require real-time hardware solutions, often involving several trips to Pay 'n Pak. Cars? Sure I'll shop over the Net, but when it comes to selecting my next automobile, test drives are required, and then there's the traditional haggling with the obnoxious sales person to ensure that I got a good deal. No money's exchanging hands over the Net yet.

How about clothes? Sure, just as easy as direct order catalogs, I guess. But, then again, the colors on screen often don't match up very well with the real thing. At least on the catalog's printed page the colors have been matched to the real color of the products. Sure, I've been told how my measurements can be stored in the haberdasher's database so I'll always get the right fit, but I buy clothes from a lot of different folks. Suits, sports apparel, hiking gear - all from different stores. It's a lot easier to just go to the mall. And I'd rather have someone who knows what he's doing take the measurements. I mean, this inseam thing can be pretty confusing ... particularly when you're trying to measure yourself.

You see, I hate buying clothes. So, I want to go to the store and see the product, make sure it's exactly what I want, buy it and be done with it. Put the whole experience behind me, so to speak. But, if I liked to shop for clothes, I'd go to the store and wander all over looking for good deals. Women often fall into this "shop till you drop" category ... and they don't do that in cyberspace, they do it through investing hours in the mall. In fact, some will take vacations just to go shopping where they've never shopped before.

So, food and clothing are out. Hardware doesn't make much sense. Cars require hands-on analysis. Well, what about transportation - airline tickets for example. Seems simple. Bring up United, check on prices and schedules to Disney World. Sign-up for a package deal with hotel and car, even line up evening entertainment. Then call your travel agent to brag about the deal you got only to find out you could have saved $800 on a special offer that American just came out with. With the airline industry still working the deregulation angles, you need an expert to lead you through the tangled web of price wars and open-jaw tickets.

Food, clothing, transportation, hardware for chores around the house. Not much money exchanging hands yet over the Net. Well, what about books? It's very expedient. You know what book you want, you click on your amazon.com bookmark, you pick the book, pay and it's in the mail. Not me. I love walking into a bookstore and just cruising the shelves. Sure I have one book in mind when I walk in the door, but I typically buy two more while I'm there because of a clerk who's reviewed a local author, or I see something that my kids would like. I wouldn't trade the bookstore shopping experience for Internet purchasing efficiencies no matter what.

O.K. I admit it. I'm not an early adopter ... I'm what you might call a lagger. I embrace technology when it is no longer referred to as technology. So, maybe I am not your typical spokesperson for the new Internet generation. But, until Web entrepreneurs start attracting buyers from the lagger market segment, such as old fogies like me, I don't think they'll achieve the critical mass to make the promised bucks everyone is talking about. Sure, I'll cruise their sites, pick out what looks good, but then I'll go to my local store to see the merchandise, hold it in my hands and buy it there. The Web helps me figure out what store in the mall I need to go to. If that's what e-commerce is really meant to be, then the revolution has arrived. But if that is it, there's going to be a lot of sulking over sagging cyber sales.