1. Introduction
It is now widely recognized that the internet's power, scope, and interactivity provide retailers with the potential to transform their customers' shopping experience, and in so doing, strengthen their own competitive positions. The internet's capacity to provide information, facilitate two-way communication with customers, collect market research data, promote goods and services and ultimately to support the online ordering of merchandise, provides retailers with an extremely rich and flexible new channel. In so doing, the internet gives retailers a mechanism for: broadening target markets, improving customer communications, extending product lines, improving cost efficiency, enhancing customer relationships and delivering customized offers. By and large, consumers have responded enthusiastically to these innovations, and online retail sales have grown significantly over the past 15 years and are predicted to continue rising into the future.