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Non-Tech : E*Trade (NYSE:ET) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Spytrdr who wrote (8362)	9/8/1999 6:13:00 PM
From: Life Coach	Respond to of 13953

EGRP IN THE NEWS: SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 7 (Reuters) - America Online <AOL.N>, eBay Inc.<EBAY.O> and E*Trade <EGRP.O> have all suffered system collapses and still managed to keep growing. Even mighty Intel Corp.<INTC.O> had a much-celebrated flaw in its original Pentium -- which went on to become the most successful tech product ever. Online retailers, looking at the recent history of companies that became No. 1 in their markets despite service outages and bugs, seem to be taking the attitude that speed to market, being the "first mover," is the key to success. But online retailing might be different. Two surveys released in recent days show that online buying services are suffering widespread problems in getting consumers the products they've ordered, and both surveys suggested the penalty for failing to deliver could be severe. Dataquest, the San Jose, Calif.-based market research company, said that about a third of the 37 million U.S. households with access have been hit by ordering problems. In another survey released last week, the market researcher e-BuyersGuide.com said that one in 10 orders could not be filled for online shoppers. Those are more than just scattered problems, and the surveys point to a growing restlessness among consumers with the level of service being provided. That could foreshadow difficult times for online pioneers who are concentrating more on providing the lowest prices and spending the most on advertising -- while letting service slip. "There is no second chance to win customer loyalty," said Harry Hoyle, who headed Dataquest's online survey. Everywhere on the Internet there is mad dash to get to market ahead of competitors. Internet services, influenced by the lore of Silicon Valley, tend to put a lot of stock in the view that getting "installed" first means success. Once your software is embedded in a system, the conventional logic goes, it's hard to get you out. That might work when you're talking about computer chips -- you're not likely to yank the Pentium out of your computer if it fails a math computation. It might also work for Internet providers. America Online has the advantage of owning your e-mail address, which means users won't dump the service on a whim. E-Trade is holding your money -- which also makes for a complicated mess when you try to change accounts. But that's not true with online retailers. They might be more likely to live and die by a single click of the mouse. Mary Helen Gillespie, of Burlington, Mass.-based e-BuyersGuide, in a study of over 400 online consumers, found that that fully 13 percent of online buyers would not go back to at least one site they've already used. Gillespie believes that traditional retailers might be well-placed in the ensuing battle for the online consumer because they'll always put service first. "Providing good services is increasingly going to be the challenge that any retailer has to meet -- but for the pure play Internet commerce company it could be a make or break issue," said Gillespie. Traditional retailers with well-known brand names can build up service more gradually, and take care to protect their reputation for service as they grow. What are the service problems reported in the surveys? Unfilled orders is a top complaint. Dataquest said that of households experiencing problems, 49 percent reported that they placed orders that did not arrive. In more than half the cases customers were billed anyway for the order. There was widespread dissatisfaction with the ease of communication. For a business that prides itself on interactivity, the online services left more than 60 percent of shoppers feeling they needed more information on their purchases, e-BuyersGuide's study found. Dataquest said that one-quarter of the complaints were related to the inability of consumers to reach the retailers via e-mail. Despite all the unhappiness over online service, Dataquest said, consumers are still highly receptive to the overall concept. Eighty-eight percent gave it a "satisfactory" rating, but that shouldn't make anyone complacent, Dataquest said. "In the rush to participate in e-commerce, some efforts have been less than perfect," Dataquest said. Even though it's new for shoppers, they expected these fast-track retailers to provide good service. "The Internet is becoming more mainstream," said Gillespie, "and the expectations for it are becoming more mainstream." (The NetTrends column appears weekly; for questions or comments send email to Dick Satran at dick.satran@reuters.com) 21:08 09-07-99

To: Spytrdr who wrote (8362)	9/8/1999 9:35:00 PM
From: Spytrdr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13953

Upbeat Abby September 8, 1999 By Stacey L. Bradford ON WEDNESDAY morning, Goldman Sachs' perennial bull Abby Joseph Cohen raised her price targets for both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrials. She now expects the S&P 500 to end 1999 trading at 1385 (up from 1350) and the DJIA to hit 11500 (up from 10300). Her 12-month rolling forecast for the S&P 500 is 1450. Why the upward revision? Cohen points to three factors: stronger-than-expected earnings growth, modest inflation and her belief that much of the rise in bond yields has already occurred. But it's earnings growth that she says weighed most heavily upon her decision. Cohen says earnings for the S&P 500 exceeded her forecast during the first part of the year, and she expects the strength to continue. "Analysis of the results by economic sector suggests broad-based improvement that is likely to persist for several quarters," Cohen writes, and it's that durability of profits, rather than just rapid growth, that should earn higher stock prices. So what sectors does Cohen like for the rest of the year? She points to financial-services firms. "We now see opportunities among sectors whose performance has lagged due to investor concerns (which we do not share) that economic growth may soon trigger troubling inflation and notable interest rate gains," she writes. She also likes U.S. technology companies that continue to deliver innovative products and services in computing and communications, not to mention above-average earnings growth.