That Old Sell Anything Online Spirit Still Lives

from the when's-the-IPO? dept

In 1998 or so there were stories all the time about some entrepeneur who came up with the idea to sell something online. Basically, you had a bunch of MBA grads who looked at all the stores online and figured out what wasn't being sold, and then set up their own dot com to do so. That's how come you started seeing things like petfood and furniture show up online. Now, in a story that seems transported from those times, is an article about some guy who is selling sunflower seeds online, but without all the hoopla about how much venture capital they've raised, and where their Silicon Valley offices are located (they're in North Dakota, actually). Seriously, though, as a small business, this is exactly what the internet is good at. The problems came when these ecommerce plays thought they were changing some fundamental rule of retail instead of just opening up a new channel for sales.