AT&T Wireless Cingular Merger May Make Sense

Ecommerce Companies Doing Okay

from the dot-coms-cleaned-out dept

Tue, Jun 11th 2002 10:59pm — Mike Masnick

Sure, it was fun to laugh at all the silly dot com ecommerce ideas for a while, but it seems that many of the ones who have made it through the collapse are doing okay. A new study shows that the majority of ecommerce sites are now profitable (though, it's a slim majority). Of course, the ones that are doing best are the online versions of catalogs. That makes sense, since they probably had to change their organization the least, and were the ones who best understood the ideas behind mail order economics.

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Jonathan Grant, 12 Jun 2002 @ 9:16am

eCom meets catalog not so rosy..
..sure, there's a lot to be gained from having both a web and mail order channel. fufillment for the web can be run through existing mail order systems for example.

..the biggest problem seems not to be a technical one - it's more an issue of perception. typically, the web channel is seen as the same as the mail order , without any of the costs. companies happy to drop hundreds of $k on a catalog balk at the idea of spending on a website. then there's the content - most catalog content is inappropriate for the web. i could go on and on.

Jon
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- Mike (profile), 12 Jun 2002 @ 9:28am
  
  Re: eCom meets catalog not so rosy..
  Having once worked at a fairly large direct order catalog company, I agree with you. That said, though, they do have the shipping infrastructure and knowledge in place... and the web side will come around.
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