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

To: Sonny Blue who wrote (43688)	3/3/1999 1:44:00 PM
From: GST	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Sonny -- you could be right -- I was thinking the yield would stall out tomorrow at 5.75 and then drop on Friday in a big up day reversal. But 6% is not that far from here, and there are movements in the market -- but I have not heard any bumps in the night from Asia so I am still thinking the bond funds are standing ready to swoop in and buy, triggering a short covering rally that will cause cheering in the stock market.

To: Sonny Blue who wrote (43688)	3/4/1999 9:25:00 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

Price counts for less than service on the Internet By Andrea Orr SNOWBIRD, Utah, March 3 (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc. <AMZN.O> and several other online stores say they are betting that consumers will look for something other than rock bottom prices when they go shopping on the Internet. Price is important, but service and strong branding is critical when it comes to attracting and retaining customers, according to most of the Internet businesses at the Hambrecht & Quist planet.wall.street conference here. "Amazon's products are very aggressively priced to begin with, but service is a very important component of online sales," Ram Shriram, Amazon's vice president of business development said. "And the at-cost model is far from proven as a business model." The issue of pricing has become more controversial with the rise of online retailers, and the emergence of several Internet stores that promise to sell at cost, or on razor-thin margins. Unlike physical retailers, those on the Internet have more room to be creative with pricing. Many have lower overhead than physical stores and can supplement product revenues by selling ad space on their Web sites or entering promotional deals with manufacturers looking for online exposure. Despite the mounting price competition, most e-commerce businesses are still pursuing other strategies to build a loyal customer base, rather than simply chasing prices downward. "We don't see pricing as a particular strategy we're going to employ," said Brooks Fisher, Vice President of the consumer Internet division of Intuit Inc. <INTU.O>, which makes popular personal finance, and small business software, and is seeking to shift more of its business online. Intuit says it is encountering more and more pricing pressure on the Web but finds customers are willing to pay for quality service and a brand they believe in, especially when it comes to such sensitive services as tax preparation. Other businesses like brokerage Charles Schwab Corp. <SCH.N>, which have both an online and an offline presence, say they can tailor their different services to attract both those customers who value low price above everything else, and those who will pay for extra services. Charles Schwab President David Pottruck said that is the strategy his company has used to build a popular online brokerage while still managing to grow its original, and more expensive, full service brokerage. But even its limited-service online brokerage can not focus exclusively on low prices, he said. "Price counts, but brand is key, and low price is less important than great service."