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To: Warren A. Wilbur, Jr. who wrote (7654)	7/10/1998 3:54:00 PM
From: allen v.w.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8242

TO ALL A little reading LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two years ago, American companies were still getting acquainted with electronic commerce. To understand how far e-commerce has come in such a short time, look what's happened at Harley-Davidson. Not long ago, consultants for the motorcycle maker suggested building an Internet-based network known as an extranet to distribute service information to hundreds of Harley dealers nationwide. But company executives were skeptical, believing their ''hog'' dealers were the antithesis of Internet users. Were they wrong! A dealer poll revealed more than 90 percent used the Internet, leading to a quick green light for the extranet project, said Sheldon Laube, chief technology officer at USWeb, a Web design firm that consulted with the motorcycle company. ''It's creating an extraordinary opportunity,'' said Laube, speaking at the Giga Information Group's BusinessOnline 98 conference held this week in San Francisco. Laube was one of dozens of executives at the conference to share what they've learned about using the Internet to connect with suppliers, and customers. Corporate use of the Internet for e-commerce and other business purposes is projected to maintain its present frantic pace. The number of commercial Web sites should hit 414,000 this year, climbing to 1.6 million by 2002, Michael Taylor of Arthur D. Little said at the conference. Gradually, business Web sites have evolved from public relations ''brochureware'' to offer shopping, stock trading and other transactions, and companies are integrating them with existing corporate computer networks, Taylor said. An early e-commerce leader that continues to break new ground is Federal Express. In 1995, the delivery company built a Web-based service customers could use to track packages after they'd been shipped. Today, FedEx receives 1.7 million tracking requests a month on the site (http://www.fedex.com), and an additional 500,000 requests on another private Web site for special customers. Several large FedEx customers, including computer network equipment maker Cisco Systems, now feature FedEx's package tracker on their own Web sites, accounting for close to 20 percent of the tracking requests FedEx receives, said Mike Janes, a FedEx e-commerce marketing vice president. For e-commerce to work, companies need to use the Internet to provide similar services that customers couldn't get as fast or any other way, Janes said. ''Otherwise, your Web site is just eye candy,'' he said. As an incentive to shop online, Hammacher Schlemmer offers customers who register on its new Web site (http://www.hammacher.com) a personalized version of the specialty retailer's home page that displays sale merchandise not available to other shoppers. As a result, ''We see a lot of new customers come in through the Web site,'' said Lester Hsieh, the company's marketing vice president. Borders Boooks and Music (http://www.borders.com) is an e-commerce latecomer, only recently entering the hotly contested online bookselling niche behind leaders Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com), and Barnesandnoble.com (http://www.barnesandnoble.com). The national chain hopes to catch up by offering a huge selection in three categories -- 3 million book titles and 7 million music CDs and videos -- and through promotional campaigns online and off. The retail chain already has sponsorship deals with Infoseek (http://www.infoseek.com) and Snap! (http://www.snap.com), as well as relationships with Internet chat specialist Talk City (http://talkcity.com) and Salon (http://www.salon1999.com), the online magazine. ''It cracks me up when we hear about the low barriers to entry'' for e-commerce, said Rick Vanzura, Borders e-commerce senior vice president. ''We have hundreds of people and have spent tens of millions working in this space. We've been committed to it, but we weren't committed to throwing a lot of money at it without having a plan. It's taken us up until now to have all three categories (ready) and promote them.'' In some industries, the rise of e-commerce has led wholesalers and others who work between manufacturers and customers to be cut out of the selling process, a concept the industry has dubbed disintermediation. Instead of cutting out the middleman, USWeb's Laube believes the Internet will create new go-betweens. One example of these new ''re-intermediators'' is Auto By Tel (http://www.autobytel.com), the car buying service that also helps consumers find the model car they want at a good price and helps them put together financing and insurance. Companies that don't want to get left out of the shifting equation need to act quickly, Laube said. Likewise, companies can't be afraid of opportunities the Internet creates for customers to talk about their products. The smartest ones sponsor online discussions and listen to what customers say and act on problems that come up, Laube said. ''This is happening whether you like it or not. Your challenge is, do you want to be in front of it or behind it?'' he said. (Michelle V. Rafter writes about cyberspace and technology from Los Angeles. Reach her at mvrafter(at)deltanet.com. Opinions expressed in this column are her own.)