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

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (105237)	6/23/2000 1:01:00 AM
From: Randy Ellingson	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

Amazon is fighting two battles one is they are doing fulfillment which is something the customer does for free in a brick and mortar store. [snip] Glenn- I understand your points. I disagree that fulfillment is free in offline stores. But I also know that you have direct experience on this point. The internet is a medium to exchange information more than anything. Its use for consumers will be mostly for information and pricing of products. It will offer convenience for commodity type items but the consumer is going to half to be willing to pay more for that convenience than they would in a brick and mortar store. Do you see that happening? Actually, I've always thought my own purchasing habits would allow for slightly higher prices in exchange for less hassle, less time, and these include the "reliability" of the sale. Meaning for online stores, I won't bother typically to buy anywhere else besides Amazon, because I believe that fulfillment and the completion of the sale (plus the quality of if-needed customer service) are optimal at Amazon. I once bought a book considerably cheaper from another store, and unfortunately the book arrived slightly damaged. Since it was going to be a gift, I felt I had to correct the merchant's "error" (the book was apparently packaged in damaged form). Of course the return involved time, and also involved some mis-information and uncertainty. Bad luck, but almost certainly more likely from the low-cost vendor than from a demonstrated customer service leader. All obvious, but I ended up buying the copy from Amazon. So, yes, I do see the possibility that customers are willing to pay slightly more at the "right" online store. Is it really necessary though, that the sale price be higher online than offline? Randy