...As consumers increase their use of the Internet, the opportunity for the Web to influence their online and off-line shopping behavior grows. Simply put, businesses must integrate across channels. |
[This could be a critical inflection point for online retail. If either company can make its offer work, free shipping could become the industry norm. But if the companies can't divine the sweet spot, and they end up losing money, this could be the last time we'll see any such offers -- except for very limited, one-time deals.] I don't think either of them knows if it's going to work out economically or not, ... The only way to know is to try. |
Consumers seem to increasingly see search as their starting point when they go online. |
E-commerce last year, revenues totaled about $3 billion, ... We anticipate they'll total about $7 billion in 1998. And the forecast for 2002 is $41.1 billion. |
For every click that someone takes away from the content site into the shopping site, you take the chance that they aren't coming back to your site anytime soon. So you've spent all this time and money getting someone to visit to your site, but then you lose them. |
Hockey could be a fairly solid niche market. In many parts of the country, the selection of products is fairly scarce. |
I don't think either of them knows if it's going to work out economically or not. The only way to know is to try. |
I don't think they can do it. In order for Buy.com to make any money off of this, their order size has to be two units per order. There's no incentive in the offer to drive the order that high. |
I wouldn't say this will ruin things for 800.com, but it could have a very serious effect on customer acquisition, |
In my mind, the overriding story is that the sponsored links business is growing pretty nicely. |
It means you don't have to hand off each purchase and pray that some other guy is going to deliver it properly. |
It's clear that this event will shake up the search/portal space. |
It's not clear-cut if it's really less costly. |
It's not necessarily a dot.com play, but seems like an effort to get into publishing, |
Last year, nearly everyone was surprised at how much demand there was. This year, people realize how much demand and potential there is. We won't see as many people caught off guard. |