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To: Doctorgreenback who wrote (7625)	12/31/1998 6:20:00 PM
From: allen v.w.	Respond to of 40688

You to DOC! E-commerce Predictions for 1999 By Maryann Jones Thompson The fantastic e-commerce growth in 1998 begs just one question: What will happen in 1999? Analysts seem to agree that as the industry matures, it will be nearly impossible to maintain the phenomenal growth rate experienced by online retailers this year. But they also agree that revenue levels will continue to rise and commerce-enabling technology will continue to advance. "It will be a healthy, but not spectacular, year for the electronic commerce industry as a whole," predicts Bill Burnham, an analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston. "But the industry is being pushed forward by its basic fundamentals, which are growing quite nicely." Burnham sees this continued growth finally making a dent – albeit a small one – in overall retail sales. "We're moving from a drop in the bucket to a trickle, and I'm sure [that] in a few years it will be a nice steady flow." And 1999 will also be a landmark year for business-to-business e-commerce. Forrester Research predicts that these types of transactions will amount to $109 billion next year – more than double the 1998 total and over six times the business-to-consumer market projected for 1999. Mainstream industries such as automotive, shipping and petrochemicals are poised to replicate the e-commerce successes realized in the high-tech, finance and retail fields. "Part of it has to do with the organizational side of the business: many companies now have Internet strategy boards in place," says Forrester Research analyst Michael Putnam. Clearly, the widespread success of consumers shopping online will help pave the way for adoption of improved e-commerce technologies. "We'll see more experiments with auction as a sales format [by online merchants]," says Nicole Vanderbilt, director of digital commerce at Jupiter Communications. Other predictions: a race to develop "electronic wallets" and experiments with 3-D merchandising. Zona Research vice president Greg Blatnik adds that the coming adoption of XML, HTML's successor, will make it easier for specific information to be exchanged by buyers and sellers. "Agents and shopping bots will work more effectively." But not all analysts are bullish on bots – the electronic agents that scan several sites for the best bargains. Internet expert Donna Hoffman says she finds the focus on price rather than value "disconcerting." "[Bots] are a horrible distraction from what people really want," says Hoffman. "They will be [the source of] a lot of wasted effort in '99." And though International Data Corp. predicts many sites will offer voice-enabled sales and support in the coming year, Barry Parr, director of e-commerce strategies at IDC, notes that positive buying experiences will do the most to drive digital retailing in 1999. "Next year, customer-service leaders are going to emerge and distinguish themselves on things that have nothing to do with technology," Parr says. ALLEN:

To: Doctorgreenback who wrote (7625)	12/31/1998 6:23:00 PM
From: allen v.w.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 40688

Online in '99: Women, small firms PALO ALTO, Calif. -- More women than men will be online, and the Internet will help U.S. small businesses go global in a big way in 1999, says a top Internet analyst. Next year will be the year that "the virtual world looks a lot like the real world," with mergers and acquisitions and Internet kiosks helping customers in retail stores, says Frank Gens, senior vice president of Internet research for International Data, a research firm. Among the trends Gens and his colleagues are predicting: For the first time, women will make up the majority of online users in 1999: 51% vs. 43% in 1997. "This could be a big shot in the arm for Internet commerce" because many women control shopping for household goods, Gens says. One-third of households will be online and half of those will shop online. Fueling this growth will be a new generation of Internet access devices, such as TV set-top boxes. More people will log onto the Internet from outside the USA than from within. U.S. businesses online have a "great opportunity" to sell to foreign customers by putting multiple languages on their Internet commerce sites, Gens says. Internet commerce will more than double, to $68 billion, growing 30 times faster than the overall global economy. There will be a shakeout and consolidation among Internet "portals" -- search, directory and content sites such as Excite and Yahoo!. With its own portal struggling to catch on, Microsoft is a likely buyer for one of the existing strong Web brands, while second-tier players may merge with each other, Gens says. Traditional media companies also may try to buy into the Web gateway business, as NBC and Disney already are doing. Congress is likely to try again to regulate online pornography but will struggle to devise rules that don't stifle Internet commerce. "There is a real issue there," Gens says, citing data from Web tracking firm Relevant Knowledge that nearly 20% of visitors to adult sites on the Internet are between 12 and 17. By Doug Levy, USA TODAY