An interesting article about options for the future of eComm.
Dan
-----Original Message-----
From: NetProphet@bdcimail.com [mailto:NetProphet@bdcimail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2001 12:33 PM
To: stupid@wronganswers.com
Subject: JESSICA DAVIS: "Net Prophet" from InfoWorld.com, Wednesday,
February 28, 2001


========================================================
JESSICA DAVIS: "Net Prophet" InfoWorld.com
========================================================

Wednesday, February 28, 2001

I-commerce commentary by Jessica Davis

WHAT'S A DOT-COM TO DO AS CLICK-AND-MORTARS OFFER REAL
OPTIONS TO CUSTOMERS?

Posted at February 23, 2001 01:01 PM Pacific

EMERGING AS THE real winners lately are those click-and-mortars that are combining the benefits of
their physical stores with their ever-improving Web-commerce sites.

Look at Nordstrom.com, Macys.com, Bluelight.com, and others. These companies' Web sites leverage the physical stores, and vice versa. Kmart has installed kiosks in its physical stores that feature the Bluelight.com Web site. If something is out of stock in the store, Kmart doesn't have to lose that sale: The customer can order it from the Web site.

At some stores, customers can order from the Web site, then pay at the store cash register -- a great option for those Internet newbies still afraid of plugging their credit card information into a computer.

And some click-and-mortars are working on yet another option: allowing customers to order online and then
pick up their merchandise at the physical store. Customers don't have to wait for, or pay for, shipping.

Click-and-mortars are offering new ways every day to leverage all of their channels. It makes you wonder if pure-plays are destined to go the way of the dinosaur.

So what about the pure-plays? They have no physical locations to leverage, although some have managed to get around this obstacle. For example, one of the online stock-trading sites has set up kiosks at post offices.

For pure-play e-commerce sites it might make sense to partner with retailers that have not yet made a foray into the online world. But what's really in it for the physical-store retailers? Not much.

They would probably lose sales to the online kiosk for items that are out of stock in the store. They could certainly charge a rental fee for placing the kiosk in the store.

Or maybe the malls that dot America's landscape could offer kiosks featuring the Web sites of various pure-play Internet companies. Imagine Amazon.com or Buy.com kiosks just a hundred feet away from the B.Dalton or Electronics Boutique stores. I'm no expert in commercial real estate, but I have a feeling that the physical-store retailers, likely to pay a lot more rent, wouldn't like having these upstarts with their enormous inventories so close by.

So what's left for a dot-com to do?

Do pure-play e-tailers need to take a giant step toward building physical stores? Some analysts speculate that the day will come when Amazon stores will show up on the streets of America. But building that kind of physical infrastructure is a daunting task, particularly in troubled economic times when many retailers are cutting staff, closing stores, or declaring bankruptcy.

Just last week discount bookseller Crown Books declared bankruptcy for the second time in three years.

But wait a minute, maybe that's just the opportunity a pure-play company needs.

A few months back there was speculation about brick-and-mortars buying up distressed dot-coms to make a quick entrance into the e-commerce business. The idea was that these brick-and-mortars could buy the infrastructure instead of building it, saving time and expense.

Maybe it's now time for the strongest of the dot-coms to buy up distressed physical-world retailers. What if Amazon.com bought Crown Books? Amazon would immediately gain hundreds of physical store sites where it could set up its kiosks and offer customers another return option. It could better compete with Barnes & Noble and Borders, which both have Web presences in addition to their physical stores. Heck, it might even sell stock or obtain private funding to complete the purchase of a brick-and-mortar.

With such a purchase Amazon would have a chance to survive in the new New Economy. Because as click-and-mortars come up with more innovative ways to leverage all of their channels, pure-plays will get left in the dust.

So maybe it's time for Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to take a look at Crown Books.


Get Net Prophet free by e-mail

Go to http://www.iwsubscribe.com/newsletters and click Net Prophet to receive this column every Monday, free via e-mail.

Jessica Davis is an editor at large in InfoWorld's news department. Contact her at jessica_davis@infoworld.com.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

MORE NET PROPHET
For a complete archive of her InfoWorld columns visit http://www.infoworld.com/opinions/morenetprophet-davis.html

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"According to Black, IBM New York or its European subsidiaries supplied the 1.5 billion cards a year that the Third Reich needed to catalogue its victims and keep the trains running smoothly from the ghetto to the crematorium."

--Senior Editor Carlton Vogt in his InfoWorld Column,
"Ethics Matters," speaking about a new book on IBM and the Holocaust.

http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/01/02/26/010226opethics.xml? 0228wepr

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

SUBSCRIBE
To subscribe to any of InfoWorld's e-mail newsletters, tell your friends and colleagues to go to: ttp://www.iwsubscribe.com/newsletters/

To subscribe to InfoWorld.com, or InfoWorld Print, or both, go to http://www.iwsubscribe.com