ELECTRONIC RETAILING: THE EMERGENCE OF THE
WORLD WIDE WEB
We are living through enormous changes from the days when retailing simply
meant visiting a store, shopping from a printed catalog, greeting the Avon lady in
one’s home, or buying candy from a vending machine. Who would have thought
that a person could “surf the Web” to research a stock, learn about a new product,
search for bargains, save a trip to the store, and complain about customer service?
Well, these activities are real and they’re here to stay. Let’s take a look at the World
Wide Web from a retailing perspective, remembering that selling on the Web is a
form of direct marketing.