When ecommerce beats commerce: April 22, 2002 issue of New Thinking

April 22, 2002 New Thinking:
When ecommerce beats commerce

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April 22, 2002

When ecommerce beats commerce

By Gerry McGovern

Wherever comprehensive information is required to sell a product, service or idea, ecommerce can be a more efficient and cost-effective way of making that sale. In fact, ecommerce has clear advantages over commerce where high information, low margin products are being sold.

Recently, I bought a notebook (laptop) computer. The entire package cost about $3,000. In the process of buying the notebook, I visited physical stores, had phone conversations, and accessed information over the Web. I found the Web to be the most helpful by far.

I travel a lot. Therefore, I wanted a light laptop with a long battery life. Processing power was not that important, and I was reasonably flexible on price.

Because it was a large financial outlay, my natural impulse was to go to a physical store and talk to real people. So, I got in my car and drove for a half hour until I reached one of these large shopping centers. I drove around trying to find PC World, ended up parking in the wrong place and had to walk quite a distance to get to it.

Inside, I quickly found a selection of some thirty notebooks. I had a look at the models, then indicated that I wanted to talk to one of the sales people. He was young. I asked him how long the battery lasted for a particular model. He replied, "about two days." I stared at him. Four hours is the longest you can expect from a battery.

I found someone else. No, they didn't know the weight for this model, and no, they couldn't get me any documentation on it. I found someone else. They managed to find a single page on the model. The page contained neither battery life estimations, nor weight. I left PC World frustrated.

I went home and made some calls. I was disappointed. Nobody could answer my basic questions. Hewlett Packard was amazingly inefficient. They took ten minutes to answer my call, then redirected me to a reseller who didn't even have basic price information. The reseller said they'd ring me back and never did.

So, I went on the Web. Some websites were good, some not so. I got the distinct impression that the Dell website was vastly better than the competition. Then, I discovered Computers.com and found answers to all my questions. Amazingly, I was able to find an entire classification/category for light, long battery notebooks. Better still, there was an 'Editor's Pick' of the top five in this category. I read excellent reviews and specifications, and I was able to read what customers thought.

I decided to buy the Dell Latitude C610. It was the number one Editor's Pick at Computers.com, and met my needs pretty perfectly. As I completed my purchase, it struck me how wonderful the World Wide Web really is. Here is a place where a customer can become truly informed.

Commerce is selling with people. Ecommerce is selling with content. For relatively low margin products like computers, it would seem that retail stores cannot afford to train their staff properly. Yet, low margin or not, buying a computer is an important decision that requires lots of information. A quality website can provide this information in a highly efficient and cost effective manner.

Don't believe the hype about the dot.com demise. Ecommerce is here to stay. Ecommerce can make that sale.

Gerry McGovern

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Don't believe the hype about the dot.com demise. Ecommerce is here to stay. Ecommerce can make that sale.

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