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Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark Fowler who wrote (77854)	9/20/1999 9:41:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

AMZN may be losing in the technology arena: "DLJdirect News Alert! triggered at 03:13 PM for symbol: CSCO INTERVIEW - Lands' End adds features to Web site INTERVIEW - Lands' End adds features to Web site NEW YORK, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Catalog and online apparel retailer Lands' End Inc. <LE.N> is aiming to break the point-and-click loneliness of online shopping. Lands' End debuted features on its Web site at landsend.com that it said allows customers for the first time in online retailing to speak with customer service representatives or shop with friends located at separate computers. The "Lands' End Live" feature allows the retailer to instantly link its customer service representatives with customers using the Web site, which an analyst said could become one of the first to turn profitable in electronic retailing. Lands' End has exclusive rights to use WebLine Communications Corp.'s "Shop with Me" collaboration technology through the end of the year, after which other companies can use it. "Companies that we have traditionally sold this product to are high tech companies like Cisco (Systems Inc.<CSCO.O>)," Beth Winkowski, spokeswoman for Burlington, Mass.-based WebLine, said. Fidelity Investments is another of WebLine's customers using the technology, she added. "It's a way to take the convenience of the Internet and marry it with the customer service of Lands' End," said Bill Bass, vice president of e-commerce. Customers have the option to chat with representatives either online or by speaking over a separate telephone line within moments after the customer asks for assistance, cutting down from a three-hour e-mail response time. Customer service representatives can also use "push technology" to display merchandise to help customers to make side-by-side comparisons or accessorize clothing. Surveys also determined that people wanted to shop online with buddies, spurring the "Shop With A Friend" feature, Bass said. The "Shop with a Friend" feature allows a customer to look at merchandise with a friend located at a separate computer. When it is time to pay for the merchandise, the friend is blocked out from seeing credit card information, Bass said. Lands' End also has developed a feature online in whichcustomers submit measurements through their computers and see how clothes would fit from all angles, a feature highlighted in a $20 million advertising campaign with the slogan, "The website that fits you." While Bass did not disclose current sales at the site, he said revenues for the first half of the year were two and a half times what they were a year before. In the fiscal year ended January 1999, the site had $61 million in sales out of the company's total $1.3 billion. Lands' End shares were up 3-11/16 to 63-1/8 in afternoon trading. The stock rallied on speculation that the company's e-commerce unit could be one of the first online retailers to turn a profit, said analyst Kenneth Gassman Jr., who covers direct mail merchants at Richmond, Va.-based Davenport & Co. Gassman said that 8 to 10 percent of total revenues from Lands' End could come online this year. About 20 percent of Lands' End Internet customers are new to company products. The remaining 80 percent have previously used the catalog, Gassman said. Bass said the Web site helps promote Lands' End's catalog business, which mails 250 million catalogs a year, and vice versa. "Traffic to the Web site spikes after catalog mailings," he said. Bass said the company's catalog operations provides a distribution system that gives it a "huge competitive advantage" over other online retailers. REUTERS Rtr 15:13 09-20-99"