In a real store, buyers and mall managers exercise at least some judgement
as to what is appropriate to carry. In the Online Malls they'll take ANYONE
who will pay. Who wants to look through a jumbled collection of car
batteries, next to condoms next to clocks, too many items being of shoddy
quality.
Of course, the successful big malls will develop great shopping cart devices
(like one in our recent Game Store catalog www.discountgames.com) and good
return policies and other features so that they buyer trusts the mall owner
even if they may not trust ABC Widget Co with a PO Box in New York City. The
economies of scale of great alert services, or very user friendly check out
systems will mean people who are selling a couple of products will want to
group themselves into a "mall", but they ought to instead have their own web
pages and buy links from malls that are proven traffic generators.
Shopping is entertainment. Its an activity. I think it will be a while
before people give up the real mall for the virtual mall for general items.
On Line Agents could eliminate the need for general purpose malls. If I
want the new Madonna record the Arthur Andersen agent can go out and search
all the online records store that allow it to enter and return to youwith
the price by store. Who cares what "mall" you're in at that point.
SPECIALITY ITEMS, are another thing altogether....
I see a BIG future for specialty malls online. Very specialized Enhanced
Information Areas that also happen to have shopping as an importnat component.
For example, our new Cuba Web (<a href="<a href="http://www.cubaweb.com/eng/">http://www.cubaweb.com/eng/</a>">http://www.cubaweb.com/eng/</a>) provides a
place on the net for anyone interested in doing business in a post embargo
cuba (or cuban culture in general) Soon you will be able to buy all kinds of
products that appeal to people with a passion for Cuba. Only on the web
could you do this :) How about an online mall for products for Left handed
people ?
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The Internet Factory, Inc | P.J. Stafford, President | pj@netfactory.com
voice 810.642.0790 | info@netfactory.com | <a href="<a href="http://www.netfactory.com">http://www.netfactory.com</a>">http://www.netfactory.com</a>
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