I don't know why this would affect a "Yahoo-OnSale" merger, which is one item I have been posing. The merchandising glitches of the industry have not much to do with the merging of complementary independent Internet "attractors" of OnLine activity. OnSale would benefit from Yahoo's traffic, Yahoo would benefit from OnSale's traffic. OnSale would provide Yahoo another piece to the puzzle of one-stop portal.
As far as Compaq's announcement. Wait a minute, hasn't Compaq joined the ranks of OnLine direct sellers themselves? I'll have to go check.
But, could this be a "disguised" effort to protect and "exclusivize"
the Internet sale of their product to their own site?
Sony has been hiding that strategy, now, for several years.
These companies all realize the Dell and Gateway models cannot be ignored.
I think it;s time for some "class-action" activity with these "Brand" oriented mass market companies. I remember in th early 70's when Fair Trade laws eliminated price-fixing by the major brands. At that time, Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, etc were all parties to it.
Time to dust off the law books, and open up the Internet access to all brands, under the same rules applied to Retailers and/or distributors in a competitive market.
If Best Buy has lower lease costs than Circuit City, which allows them to operate on lower margins and sell for lower prices, how is that different than Internet Commerce.
It's just the manufacturers hate to see those margin dollars disappearing into space. They can never re-coup them for any segment of a channel of distribution. But, the consumer wins, and isn't that, generally, what it is about? |
