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

To: Mark Fowler who wrote (8785)	7/4/1998 10:49:00 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

See what egghead com did. Closed down all their stores to sell strickly over the internet. Mark, I agree with your perception that BKS and BGP are not grouped as internet companies as far as valuations are concerned. No one can argue with that statement. I am not sure the business model of AMZN is more cost efficient. The market itself will show what is really the case in time. EGGS has not faired any better by being only on the net at least, as of yet. I do not know what that means either. Glenn

To: Mark Fowler who wrote (8785)	7/5/1998 1:15:00 AM
From: Dwight E. Karlsen	Respond to of 164684

See what egghead com did. Closed down all their stores to sell strickly [sic] over the internet. That is logical to me. The reason being that software must be loaded into a computer before you can really see what it has to offer, and how it works. Egghead tried a little bit to do this, by loading a few of the most popular programs onto a computer inside the store, at the end of an isle. But for most software package, you simply have to go by the words on the outside of the package, look at the price, and try it out. Egghead did have a 30-day satisfaction guarantee, but probably most people feel it's a hassle to return things, so they simply are careful about their purchasing decisions to begin with. So since software is shrink-wrapped "stuff", it makes sense to simply put it on the internet. You can't learn more about the software by going to the store. Plus, and this is a critical point: Software buyers by definition already have a computer, and likely have a modem and internet access also. Certainly not all, but more and more do now. But with books, I believe it's different, for a couple of critical reasons. #1, The broad range of book readers don't necessarily even have computers, much less internet access from their home. I believe that home PC penetration rate is something like 45% now, after stagnating at 40% for two or three years. So 55% of this broad market of book buyers don't even have PCs, and a good percentage of them may never get a PC. Those middle-aged to elderly who don't have tech-savvy kids living nearby to help them out simply don't want to deal with learning a complicated contraption such as a PC. #2, you can actually "browse" the contents of a book in a bookstore. When I want to buy a book on investing for instance, you can bet that I'm going to go the bookstore. I'm going to open and thumb through any book that looks close to what I'm looking for. Then when I find what I want, I want to buy it right there, and why not? I want to walk out with it. It would be stupid at that point to go home and order it off the internet, have to wait a couple days, plus pay shipping costs. So there's simply no way that traditional book stores are going to go by the wayside. Anyone who thinks this is a possibility has their head in the sand, IMO.