I pass on the following articles not because I endorse the high-impact
consumer economy and believe the capitalist experience of shopping to be a
virtue, but because of the independence that electronic shopping offers for
the blind person.  we now have the ability to have as much information
about a product as a sighted person without the hassles of hurried store
clerks who really don't have the time to provide assistance.  There are
two articles with this post.  the first describes online shopping
generally and the second focuses on the fact that many well known brands
are not available online.  the two articles are separated by a line of
dashes.


kelly 

from the New York Times 

December 10, 1998

Online Shopping: Good, Bad and Growing

You Can Get Books, Jewelry and Even Miss Melba's Olde Timey Fruitcake 
By TINA KELLEY

In many houses, there is a mouse stirring this holiday season: the one
attached to the computer.  It is being used for one-click gift ordering,
with the promise of avoiding crowded malls and traffic jams and the hope
of finding last-minute purchases on the Web.
 
 Online holiday purchases are expected to double compared with last year,
said Nick Donatiello, president of Odyssey, a market research company in
San Francisco. And while online shopping will still account for only a
small part of holiday purchases, wired merchants and investors have been
salivating over the potential increases.

But can shopping online really make the last-minute rush easier? A
sampling of shopping sites and interviews with Internet retailing experts
suggests the answer is yes -- at least for products that can be found on
the Web and especially for near-last-minute purchases.

Just remember that many items are not easily available online, that Web
traffic itself can suffer from jams and that most of the things you click
your mouse on still have to be delivered by trains, planes or trucks.

To sweeten the season's shopping experience, Internet retailers have
developed gift registries, gift suggestions for stumped shoppers and even
live customer service -- just like stores. And the number of Web retailers
grows every year, increasing selection and competition.

There are big and efficient online sellers for books, CD's and computer
equipment, and many sites offer electronic cards and gift certificates.
There are even games that can be downloaded, theoretically, the night
before Christmas.

In fact, for grown-ups who would rather visit a root canal specialist than
a toy store in the next two weeks, there is www.etoys.com, which promises
that "Santa can go to bed early this year." Toys are categorized by age,
and pages describe what awards each toy has won. At www.toysrus.com, the
Toys 'R' Us site, you can check the baby registry created (off line) by
the moms of the munchkins you're shopping for. At www.justpretend.com
("toys and playthings that inspire imagination and creativity") there are
five sets of specialized dress-up sets, with reversible wizard-or-princess
hats.

For those with quirkier tastes, sites can be found offering four-pound
fruitcakes, fancy sports equipment, foreign musical instruments and rare
videos.

Books are among the biggest-selling items online, with Amazon.com and the
Barnes & Noble site as two major places geared toward last-minute book
buying.

"My goal is to take a two- or three-week period of hell and turn it into
15 minutes of a pretty good time," said David Risher, senior vice
president of Amazon.com, as he tripped through Web screens in his Seattle
office, demonstrating how to give a present in the fewest possible
seconds.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
Some online sites have gone so retro that they are providing actual human beings to help shoppers.  

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
 
"Let's say you're in a big hurry," he went on. "We have a feature on the
Web site, Gift Click. You can do it Christmas morning." The function tells
your recipients via e-mail that you are sending presents and lets them do
the pesky work of filling in the mailing addresses. For purchasers who put
their credit card numbers on file, it's one-click shopping.

Barnes & Noble, in addition to offering "buy now and get a free book"
deals for new customers, (www.barnesandnoble.com) posts a chart of the
last day you can order a book in stock for Christmas delivery.

Another innovation for online shoppers is the gift registry. One example
is the Wish List offered by iQVC, the Web version of television's QVC home
shopping channel. About 10,000 people have signed up to use it, said
Stuart Spiegel, vice president and general manager for iQVC. At iQVC's
jewelry site (www.gemsandjewels.com), those who think it's blessed enough
to receive can leave very specific instructions on what they want, right
down to ring size, favorite stone and preferred designer. Those who are
going for the greater blessings of giving use the password of the person
who registered to find out which precious stone to concentrate on.

"It's no different from that magazine left on the coffee table a little
too long opened to the right thing," Spiegel said. "It is a fun way to
point people in the right direction."

A similar service is offered at Eddie Bauer (www.eddiebauer.com), where
you can send out e-mail announcements to friends about what you want from
the store. They're not subtle: "Hi from (my e-mail address) (my name)! I
have an Eddie Bauer Wish List at http://www.eddiebauer.com. Just go to
'Wish Lists.' . . ." The message includes the wisher's password to get
access to the list, but not so much as a "please" or "thank you."

Another helpful feature for buying off the Web are shopping agents,
programs that search commercial sites and come back with a list of items
and prices, which can certainly reduce fingertip fatigue. One,
www.mysimon.com, will even search for the best bargains for the objects
you desire, then let you send the results via e-mail straight to people
who have you on their gift lists.

Some online sites have gone so retro that they are providing actual human
beings, through chat or e-mail, to help shoppers. During limited hours you
can try live customer service at Azazz.com, an Internet-based department
store that offers housewares, apparel and home office supplies, with free
shipping. Another is Adatom.com, which offers brand-name furniture, linens
and toys direct from the factory. The humans function much like the
programs that are always available at sites like Amazon, which provide
suggestions for other books or movies a "Beloved" or "Titanic" fan might
like.

For those who would rather decorate the house with all that time freed up
by not shopping, you can buy live Christmas trees and wreaths or
artificial trees that arrive at your door already strung with lights. Then
try poring over the numbing prospect of 26 different kinds of angel
ornaments available at Christmas Depot (Christmasdepot.com) (mauve satin,
peach satin, pink satin, red lamé starburst, red sparkle, red velvet,
silver lamé, silver lamé starburst, etc.). At the Menorah.net site, candle
holders are available in three-, six- and nine-foot models.

Some of the less delightful aspects of holiday shopping exist on the Web
as well, like piped-in tinny Christmas carols and traffic that can be
heavy at peak hours, slowing things to a crawl. And every once in a while
you might see the screen message, "Please contact the server administrator
and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might
have done that may have caused the error." So much for the customer is
always right.

The Web is never as smooth as it could be, and shopping is no different.
It can be just as hard to find some things online as off.

For example, for the father who wants a video of the 1939 (not the 1978)
version of the English drama "The Four Feathers," a search through
Reel.com, Amazon.com, and MySimon yielded two sites advertising VHS
versions of the flick (both were out of stock) and one offering a laser
disk (too high-tech for Papa). Then again, he hasn't been able to find it
in a real store, either.

 
 Yet the Web can be very useful for finding obscure items. Frith Maier of
Seattle had her heart set on a heated toilet seat, like one she had
enjoyed while visiting Japan, for her sister's outhouse in Alaska. After
calling plumbing supply companies with no luck, she found one on the site
of ToTo Toilets. The catch was that the seat, equipped with an extra
device that delivers a puff of warm air, cost $900.

If you want a used cello (knock-knock.com/mie/cellos.htm) or a bodhran
(www.bodhran.com), an ancient Celtic drum, your selection will probably be
greater than can be found by skimming your local classifieds. Bodhrans,
which are made of goat skin stretched over a wooden frame, abound on the
Web, from Ireland to Massachusetts and Prince George, B.C., with air mail
delivery times as short as three days.

For kids who need a specific brand of soccer ball, beyond what the mall
stores sell, www.soccer.com, for example, offers more than 25 kinds.

Since online orders can be entered and registered so quickly, consumers
can be forgiven for believing they can put off their shopping to the very
last minute. Lands' End's site (www.landsend.com), announces how many
"shipping days left!" until Christmas, and Christmasdepot.com counts down
the very seconds. For Father's Day, Amazon.com processed lots of same-day
sales, with gift-certificate orders coming in via e-mail that morning and
being sent out the same hour, Risher said. The same is expected on Dec.
25.

With the under-$1,000 computer hoping to attain Most Favored Donation
status, computer sites on the Web are revving up for a high-volume
December.

Computershopper.com, on its gift ideas pages, gives hints on buying
someone a PC and have it last longer than a year. But earlier this week,
CompUSA, in its holiday Web section, listed a few items that were already
out of stock and back-ordered.

One big site selling computers, Cyberian Outpost (www.outpost.com), has
warehouses and shippers located together and offers next-day delivery for
items ordered up until midnight Eastern time. And with the wide variety of
software available there and from other sites to download onto children's
computers, a popular game could arrive this Christmas morning via the
phone line, instead of the chimney.

There are other aspects of the holidays that the Web can help with, of
course, like planning dinner. Where else but online could you find a
recipe for Hanukkah Candle Salad (www.pastrywiz.com/archive/channuka.htm)
that features half a banana stuck in a pineapple ring, topped with a
gumdrop, with mayo dripping down to represent melted wax and a green
pepper handle for the candle holder?

And what brick-and-mortar store has as many kinds of fruitcake as the Web,
with Miss Melba's Olde Timey, Monastery, Gloria's Classic, Babs' Jamaican,
Sunshine Hollow's Real Handmade Pecan and Carolyn's Cajun (from Cut Off,
La.)?

And for when the holiday hangover clears, there's always the return policy
to think about. At www.azazz.com and Cyberian Outpost, returns are
accepted for any reason. Amazon.com asks no questions about returned
books, though CD's and videos need to be unopened. A printed packing slip
for returns comes with every order. Beats driving downtown, parking and
having to look someone in the eye and explain why that gift from your
beloved isn't a keeper.

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

December 10, 1998

Not Every Maker Wants Its Products Sold on the Net

By SAUL HANSELL

With online sales booming, millions of people are going to try to see if
they can cut down on trips to the mall this holiday season and do some
shopping over the Internet.  Some will end up being disappointed.

Anyone whose shopping list includes, say, a Ralph Lauren sweater, a
Pioneer car radio, a Burton snowboard or even the latest Beanie Baby from
Ty Inc. will search high and low in cyberspace without finding it. The
reason? These manufacturers prohibit retailers from selling their products
online.

To be sure, the Web is brimming with retailers, and new stores and shops
are going online every day, leaving the impression that the Internet is a
vast, freewheeling bazaar. Still, many well-known brands cannot be found
online because their manufacturers contend that the Internet flattens even
the most luxurious item to a garish, flickering image and then pits
retailers around the world in a grueling price war. "We don't think of our
products as commodities that can be managed by point, click and order,"
said Ed Sachs, executive vice president for sales at Pioneer Electronics,
which prohibits dealers from selling its audio and video products online.

Pioneer's stance is still common in many industries. That is especially so
among makers of more expensive lines, which are concerned about
controlling the image of their brands and have always tried to have a
small number of local stores, whose loyalty they are loath to upset. Other
manufacturers are resisting the Internet because they want to join it
later, selling their goods themselves.

For now, Internet shopping remains a very slim slice of the retailing pie.
The Direct Marketing Association predicts that this year, $4.7 billion
worth of goods and services will be sold online -- slightly more than 5
percent of the $87 billion that will be sold by direct mail and
telemarketing and a tiny fraction of the $2.6 trillion in overall retail
sales in the United States.

In the future, of course, Internet selling is expected to claim a much
bigger share of the shopping dollar. Virtually nonexistent four years ago,
shopping online is now the fastest-growing form of retailing. This year's
Christmas sales are expected to be two and a half times last year's, with
hundreds of thousands of people buying online for the first time.
Consumers have been lured by the shop-at-home convenience and the ability
to pick from a huge selection of products, whatever the omissions. And
early fears about credit card fraud are fading as millions of people buy
products online with few reported problems.

As online shopping begins to move into the mainstream, manufacturers are
coming under increasing pressure to allow their products to be sold in
cyberspace.

"There is a spiral effect," said Maria Latour Kadison, an analyst with
Forrester Research, a Cambridge, Mass., firm that tracks Internet trends.

"As more consumers come on the Internet, it drives retailers to expand
their offerings online. And when the retailers offer better selection and
easier-to-use stores, it draws even more consumers online."

So while many manufacturers are "afraid to hurt the existing
brick-and-mortar retail channels that have supported their brands," she
said, "they will either change their minds or they will lose out." There
are already many brands that encourage online sales, including Philips
Electronics, Donna Karan and Mattel.

Other manufacturers have kept online stores from selling their goods
simply because they want to sell their goods themselves.

Macy's flagship store at Herald Square in Manhattan, for example, has rack
upon rack of jeans and chinos from Levi Strauss. But Macy's new Internet
site, macys.com, does not carry a single pair of Levi's among its 250,000
items. Why? Because Levi's insists that the only place to buy its products
on the Internet is at www.levi.com.

"We want to present our brand at its best, both in terms of assortment and
presentation," said Jay Thomas, Levi's director of digital marketing.


Levi's, moreover, faces vigorous competition from the Gap, which has been
doing a brisk business at its Internet store. The Gap (www.gap.com) does
not face any retailer-manufacturer conflicts, because it makes and sells
its own products.

Some manufacturers, however, have been forced to restrict online sales
because of pressure from their existing dealers.

"At first, we sold to a number of Internet sites, but we had to stop,"
said Lee Carlson, president of Belinda Barton Furnishings for Children, a
maker of expensive sheets and towels in Cutchogue, N.Y. "Our stores were
upset. Their main concern was that people would go online and find prices
that were lower than what they were selling for."

Online shoppers are caught in the middle of these squabbles. Gregory Frye,
for example, a fan of Calvin Klein, has been able to find only a few of
the designer's perfume items at the Macy's site and some of the underwear
line at a small site called www.metromanusa.com.

Robert Triefus, a senior vice president for Calvin Klein, said the company was worried that it would lose control of its brand image if its goods were sold on the Internet. Moreover, the company has not figured out how cyberspace fits into its existing geographic distribution agreements. 

"Some of our licensees have agreements that cover certain territories,"
Treifus said. "The Internet, by definition, is worldwide distribution."

Such concerns about control show that the retail universe in cyberspace,
despite the booming online trade in books, compact disks and computer
equipment itself, is still at a fledgling stage.

Without access to the merchandise, online entrepreneurs cannot hope to
become the next Amazon.com.

The best example is in consumer electronics, where none of the small
online merchants have anything close to a complete selection.

Greg Drew, chief executive of 800.com, a start-up company with an Internet consumer electronics store, said he has been able to buy the basic lines of television and audio equipment that are sold in such mass market retailers as Kmart, but not the sort of sophisticated models that many Internet users want. 

"We can get the low-end stuff, but the high-end stuff we can't even get close to," he said. 

Similarly, many makers of consumer appliances, like Maytag, have not been
willing to let their dealers sell online.

"Appliances are a huge business which has become increasingly concentrated
through the major retail chains: Sears, Circuit City, etc," said Trevor
Traina, a founder of Comparenet, an electronic shopping guide
(compare.net). "Their cozy relationships with retailers are keeping them
from doing things that will build their business."
 
 James G. Powell, a spokesman for Maytag, said local dealers provided
better service and support for its products than Internet sellers who
might be halfway across the country from the buyer. "We want to protect
our premium brand reputation," he said.

Of course, designers, electronics companies and others have long sought to
preserve their reputations and prices by limiting the number of stores
they sell through. And whole industries have evolved to help consumers get
around those restrictions. In fashion, there are many stores selling
close-out items and overstocks at discount prices. There are discount
electronics stores that sell goods purchased in the gray market -- that
is, through unauthorized distribution channels -- rather than directly
from the manufacturers.

All these businesses have their counterparts on the Internet. Bluefly
(www.bluefly .com) sells off-price clothing, including some items from
designers like Ralph Lauren who will not directly supply Internet stores
with their goods.

And there has also been a rise of gray market dealers of other goods, even
Beanie Babies, those small stuffed animals whose ever-so-cute variations
have made them a rage among collectors. There is a vast secondary market
for older Beanie Babies among the Internet auctions. But Ty Inc. refuses
to sell directly to any company that wants to offer new Beanies online. (A
spokesman for Ty did not return several calls for comment.)

"It's not easy to get Beanie Babies, but we get them," said Toby Lenk,
chief executive of Etoys (etoys.com), an online store that is usually able
to buy directly from the big toy makers. "But since we go through a
middleman, we charge $8.99 or $9.99 for a model that people who get the
product directly sell for $5.99."

The scarcity of Beanie Babies is an exception, and most manufacturers fear
that the gray market, and Internet sales in general, will lower, rather
than raise, the prices of their goods. They argue that this will
ultimately hurt them and their customers by squeezing out local stores.

"Maybe if you bought a snowboard on the Internet, it might be a few bucks
cheaper, but it wouldn't help the sport," said Jake Burton, founder and
chairman of Burton Snowboards in Burlington, Vt., which will not let its
products be sold online. "The specialty retailer has played a huge role in
getting this sport off the ground."

Still, a number of online stores have been able to persuade manufacturers
to sell to them by promising not to discount their products or otherwise
cheapen their image.

Fragrance Counter, an online cosmetics store (www.fragrancecounter.com),
has won over some of the most reluctant and image-conscious manufacturers
by seeking to create an upscale boutique that is the "57th Street and
Madison Avenue of cyberspace," said Eli Katz, chief operating officer of
the company . "We sell everything at suggested retail price, and we
romance and describe every product."

But perfume vendors were not convinced at first.

"They thought that selling fragrances on a computer was bizarre," Katz
said. "Now people see how the Internet adds incremental sales." Fragrance
Counter now carries nearly every major perfume line except for some very
expensive brands.

Other Internet holdouts like Oakley, a maker of sunglasses, are also
beginning to dip their toes in the online waters. But Oakley has spurned
the sites of big dealers like Sunglass Hut, granting online rights only to
Eyevault, a California start-up.

"We have always focused on selective distribution," said Link Newcomb,
Oakley's chief executive.

I don't think that online retail should be any different."


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