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Technology Stocks : CyberCash a buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: iceburg who wrote (995)	4/16/1998 3:00:00 PM
From: Brian K. Winchell	Respond to of 3990

SOME MORE READING FOR U FOLKS ~ BE WELL BKW Retailers embracing wonders of e-commerce By Margaret Kane, ZDNN April 16, 1998 11:21 AM PDT CAMBRIDGE, MA. - Every retailer knows that it's not enough to just set-up shop and wait for customers to roll in. If you want to keep them coming, you have to establish a relationship with your customers. Many traditional retailers use mass mailing to do the trick. But for online retailers, something more is needed: content to inform or entertain--and keep customers coming back even when they aren't ready to buy. <Picture> <Picture> <Picture> <Picture> A new study says the Net is growing at an incredible rate and so is business. <Picture> <Picture> What are the latest trends in e-commerce? Find out at ZDNet's E-commerceUser. <Picture> <Picture> <Picture> <Picture> That issue was very much on the mind of executives speaking at a conference on e-commerce sponsored by Zona Research. Officials from Preview Travel and music retailer N2K both stressed the importance of giving something to the consumer, to encourage them to keep logging on. "You have to overcome barriers to get people to change their traditional shopping methods," said John Petrone, senior vice president at Preview Travel. Preview Travel offers up special "Destination Guides" complete with articles on vacation spots, and tour guides from Fodor's, a partner of the company. The site also runs articles on things like fare wars or business travel buys. "It's what we use to get people to overcome the barriers. We don't think it will work otherwise," he said. N2K, which runs the Music Boulevard site, also features tailored content, with articles and interviews about specific artists. As David Pakman, vice president of business development pointed out, it's much easier for consumers to hop over to a competitor online then it is in the real world. Reeling them in "The switching costs on the Net are nil - they just type in a new URL," he said. "If you define yourself as a place where people can only buy, then you only get buyers. We want to form a relationship whether you're ready to buy right now or not." Once they've lured the customer, online merchants have to be prepared to handle their business, and one thing all of the panel participants stressed was the ability to scale. Going down online means you do no business at all. "We can't afford to be the guinea pig for something just out of the chute," Pakman said. Buying also has to be seamless. Pakman, who's site includes a proprietary method of selling songs online for 99 cents, said that while credit card transaction fees are high for such small purchases, that mehod was more acceptable to customers than the micro-payment solutions which require customers to use an e-wallet or e-cash. "It's a difficult third step to add this technology. You get your costs down but make things more difficult for the user," he said.