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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Earlie who wrote (57671)	4/27/1999 6:47:00 PM
From: Broken_Clock	Respond to of 132070

earlie, the net is a great adjunct to a small business.... ie. For my wife to do a catalogue of her prints is costly(thousands), but with the i-net she can update as needed and even put new original work up for her clients to view from the mainland. all this is much cheaper on the internet than just doing one catalogue which is outdated by the time it is finished. The i-net is also good for locating hard to come by items....I picked up a car part that was unavailable here in hawaii. I don't see how the i-net helps a big business like Crest, Ford, K-mart, Mickey D's....

To: Earlie who wrote (57671)	4/27/1999 7:29:00 PM
From: gnuman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Earlie, re: E-commerce I'm not really sure what the term means, seems to have a lot of connotations. For example, while Intel claims they are doing a $billion a month in e-commerce, I doubt if they mean they are negotiating Agreements, T&C's, MFC's, pricing, quantities, initial releases, etc., on the net. (Selling). My guess is they probably use it for such things as quarterly releases against the Agreements, backlog maintenance, rescheduling, re-mixing, re-pricing, etc. (Things that were probably done electronically even before the net). Five years from now we'll probably be surprised at what e-commerce entails. Some areas seem naturals, like catalogue sales and software purchases. Net catalogues can be very dynamic, both in content and presentation. Software sales is already gaining success on the net, and whenever broadband access becomes generally available it will probably grow enormously. But there are more subtle impacts the net will have on commerce in general. It is a very powerful research tool and already is affecting consumer purchase decisions. (And not always to the benefit of the suppliers). The net is a good educator of consumers. As more and more people use the net as an information tool, those company's without a presence could suffer. The consumer may not make his purchase over the net, but the decision on what to buy could be heavily influenced by the net. Those products you want to see, feel and experience are probably not good candidates for e-commerce. But the decision on what products you want to see, feel or experience could be determined by the net.

To: Earlie who wrote (57671)	4/27/1999 8:37:00 PM
From: Alohal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Earlie: <<...there is very little evidence around so far to show that the net is a place where anyone can turn serious profits>>. Surely you're not saying that Dell and Cisco are not turning serious profits on the net are you? You also said << To me, the net is just one more way to flog products among a huge number of approaches>>. That's like folks who said television is just another means of communicating, or airplanes just another means of getting from place to place. If you really believe that about the net, IMO you are very very far behind the curve, as were horse breeders and wagon makers at the time the automobile began to be mass produced, etc. etc. Perhaps you were referring to the internuts. If so, you might give some consideration to the idea that companies like Dell and Cisco are also internet companies, whose experience with the web is both deep and profitable. Regards and aloha.

To: Earlie who wrote (57671)	4/27/1999 9:34:00 PM
From: gbh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

The hype about net sales is supported only by net stock prices, and not by net stock bottom lines. I'm open to any info that shows it in a different light, and urge anybody with such info or data to post. Earlie, EBAY. 85% gross profit margins. Tough to do anywhere other than the net. Of course the stock is wildly over-priced (I guess <g>), but one could make the argument that this site is nothing more than a national (worldwide??) classified ad section, with a twist. I would also say that places like Buy.com and Necx.com, where after market computer add ons are sold in very high volume at prices substantially cheaper than catalog vendors would also qualify. Its my personal opinion that the online retail auction sites must be losing money. From personal experience, buying a 19" monitor, binoculars, and a Toshiba laptop, there is no way they made money on these items. Gary