Turn it around. How many commercial transactions do you do that don't at some point travel over the Net?
In the last two months I bought or researched purchases on countless items for myself and others. Most transactions were completed on the Net, some were simply in conjunction with a store or phone purchase. I looked up the proper installation of tile bought at HD, compared prices between Lowe's and HD, checked out the specs on a refrigerator I bought at Lowe's, etc. Some of the things I did simply replaced live customer service people, as with checking credit card and bank balances and transactions. I wonder how much financial services companies pay for their call centers?
Meanwhile, in my business, most of my orders now come via email and I deliver jobs to clients via FTP, jobs that used to go via messenger and Fedex. Of the things I had to deliver, I generated all my Fedex labels on their site, saving the pre-printed label cost, the customer service rep call and automatically sent email to myself and the recipient about shipping times and delivery. The website also checks out the zip code and account numbers reducing the cost of these errors. I worked with a client in California on a poster design, using images she bought and downloaded over the web. Its been years since I bought a piece of equipment that wasn't bought over the web.
This is all in conjunction with the work I do with the numerous online broker services that I use and the financial charting site I help to manage. All my confirmations and statements are delivered over the net.
A friend called me on her cell phone from the parking lot of Staples. She was about to go in there and buy Act! for about 200 bucks. I said, I hadn't bought any software in a retail outlet for years, not when you can buy fully legal OEM software from sellers on EBAY. While she was on the phone I punched up a search on EBAY and found her a copy of Act! for $18 plus shipping (quick buy). I don't think she'll ever shop anywhere else without checking out prices on the web first.
My husband gets his medication for a chronic condition from DrugStore.com and all his CDs from BMG music, ordered on their site. I bought and downloaded a legal form I needed to sell an option for a real estate sale. Yesterday I found and bought an unfinished piece of furnature from a small company in Delaware that I'd never heard of until I punched up "shaker shelf" in Google. Last week I bought vitamins from majesticearth-minerals.com on the web.
And this was just in the last two months.
Oh and I pay both Comcast and ATT for access to this wonderful marketplace......where, if I listen to you, no money seems to change hands or profit made. |
