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

To: Bill Harmond who wrote (86213)	12/4/1999 9:25:00 PM
From: Dwight E. Karlsen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

How big will online buying be? Will Amazon.com be the next WMT? -G- I don't think anyone expects that (do they?), but still, how big will it be...this article gives anecdotal evidence that it's not going to get as big as some may hope: biz.yahoo.com Key quote: "According to one published report, a majority of holiday shoppers surveyed by MOHR Learning of Ridgewood, N.J., said they preferred bricks-and-mortar stores to the Internet." On a personal level, I again have to reiterate that online buying is great for some things like computers and books, but for most things, I really do enjoy the hands-on shopping experience, which the web will never be able to duplicate. In this second major season of Christmas shopping, I went out today myself, and certainly people seem content to wait in lines to pay, if they have to. All in all, the shopping district I was in today was thronged with shoppers, all enjoying a cool but sunny and dry day, as they walked about, most carrying bags and packages of new purchases. Amazon has a tough row to hoe if they're going to avoid saturation point. My guess is that their continuous additions of new product lines is indication of AMZN management's fear of saturation in existing lines, which would cause sales to level off. That would devastating to the stock price, and indeed on the company's ability to financially survive these early years. Their survivability is in no way a sure thing, not only IMO, but also in Jeff Bezo's opinion (as he stated a couple months ago). Caveat emptor.