e-Day charts fast change

As with many things high tech, just as you get a handle on the current trends,
somebody comes up with something new.

So it only seemed fitting that at a summit planned as a forum to discuss eCommerce,
already the experts were looking to the next big thing: mCommerce — mobile commerce.

"mBusiness will be the next big wave of discussion," said Graham M.
Allen, Textron’s director of digital strategy.

Allen predicted that with the ever-growing popularity of hand-held communications
devices, e-tailers will soon be refining their products and services to meet
the challenges of marketing on a two-inch screen, such as those on cellular
phones and palm pilots.

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"It will have a huge impact on business-to-business," said Ann Driscoll,
head of eCommerce for Ross-Simons. "I’m not sure about what wireless will
mean for business-to-customer."

Driscoll spoke about Ross-Simon’s online experiences at the eCommerce summit
"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," part of e-Day, presented on Nov.
1 by the Providence Business News, OSO.com, Cox Business Services and sponsored
by Newfangled Graphics, KPMG, and Hinckley Allen & Snyder. e-Day, held at
the Westin Hotel in Providence on November 1.
"It is important to have an online presence for your customers," she
said. "It doesn’t matter where your customers are coming from, as long
as they’re coming to you."

Ross-Simons, which opened the first of its 11 stores in 1952, today conducts
70 percent of its sales through its catalog and 20 percent through its retail
stores. The Internet accounts for 10 percent of the company’s sales, according
to Driscoll.

The three media comprise what Driscoll referred to as a "multi-channel
approach," to which there are both benefits and challenges.
Producing a Web site is less expensive than publishing a catalog, Driscoll said.
The Ross-Simons Web site gives customers the ability to track the status of
their orders online, request a catalog or search for the nearest Ross-Simons
store.

One of the challenges of going online, Driscoll said, was retraining the Ross-Simons
customer service staff on the Internet. Another is the continuing process of
making certain the catalog and the Web site are in synch, especially when it
comes to discontinued items.
Despite these challenges, Driscoll stressed the value of being online.
"For any company that is serving customers, it is important to have an
online presence," she said.

But before a company gets online, according to Textron’s Allen, it must first
take the time to evaluate its "net readiness" by examining how and
where it wants to compete and what products it wants to take to market.

"The fundamental questions are the same — it’s the answers that have changed,"
he said. "Do you believe the Internet will transform the way you do business?
I would argue passionately that it does."
Part of Textron’s transformation to net readiness hinged on the development
of its Jumpsmart program, which was designed to make the leadership of the company
more Internet-aware. Through Jumpsmart, executives explored the impact of the
Internet and the ways in which it is changing the world of business.

"Those of you with a business background are probably overwhelmed,"
said Allen.

According to Allen, there’s no need to muddle a business plan by trying to balance
business strategies with eBusiness strategies.

"I would contend there’s no difference between them," he said.

As a professor of marketing and the founder of the Research Institute of Telecommunications
and Information Marketing (RITIM) at the University of Rhode Island, Ruby Dholakia
knows what is going on in the marketplace.

Part of Dholakia’s work at RITIM is an annual phone survey, which reveals the
computer habits of Rhode Islanders.
"We’ve been able to track the net readiness of the Rhode island market,"
she said.

Results from the 2000 RITIM phone survey showed that 50 percent of Rhode Island
households have computers, which is on par with the rest of the country, Dholakia
said. Seventy-five percent of computer-owning households have access to the
Internet.

"The biggest applications that people use on the Net are e-mail and chat,"
Dholakia said. "Shopping is not the dominant activity, but e-mail alerts
for various shopping activities have grown."
Dholakia said early reports of Internet users suggest that young men are the
ones most frequently online. As a result, many e-tailers are gearing products
toward men.

On the other hand

"Women tend to navigate a little differently than men, and there are several
sites that take advantage of that," she said.

Overall, Dholakia said online purchasing is expanding.

"More people are buying online," Dholakia said. "Data seems to
indicate a very healthy growth."
The flip side to the growing markets for e-tailers are some ugly topics: cyber-squatting
and domain name disputes. According to William R. Grimm, partner for Hinkley,
Allen & Snyder who specializes in intellectual property law, lawsuits of
this type are becoming increasingly common.

Cyber-squatters will register a domain name and then sell it at a profit – and
it’s not just company names.

"Because of the intrinsic nature of the way search engines work, descriptive
terms have value," said Grimm.

For example, wallstreet.com sold for $1.3 million, wine.com for $3 million and
business.com for $7.5 million.

Another fact companies should take into account – even businesses with a trade
name that is unique – in a URL, adding a dot or dropping a letter changes the
domain name entirely.

Grimm said Fleet.com received complaints about questions posted by customers,
on what the customers believed to be Fleet’s legitimate Web site. The customers,
believing their questions were going unanswered, followed up with phone calls.
The problem was eventually traced to a New Jersey man who had registered domain
names similar to those of banks throughout the country, and was creating "customer
questionnaires" on which customers were asked to give their bank account
numbers. The outcome of such a scam, had it been successful, could have been
devastating. Grimm said no local Fleet customers were affected.

Grimm offered these suggestions to companies that are — or thinking about going
— online:
"Inventory your intellectual property assets," he said. "Ask
yourself how your customers are going to find you."

And be aware of what — and who — is out there.

"Consumers could be going to these pirate sites instead of where you are,"
he said.

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