Les Jones: Tuesday E-commerce Report #5

March 30, 2004

E-commerce > Tuesday E-commerce Report #5

Monsters of E-commerce

Cronaca blogs a N.Y. Times story about eBay vigilantes: people who intervene in auctions they think are fraudulent. Via Marginal Revolutions.

Wal-Mart has launched their online music store. It's no iTunes, but Wal-Mart is already the biggest company in the Fortune 500, the second-largest CD retailer in the U.S., and the fifth-largest e-tailer overall, so I wouldn't bet against them.

Mike blogs about Amazon's in-store pickup system: specify your zip code, browse the available local products, and pick up the book from a participating local store (currently Borders, Circuit City, and Office Depot). The In-Store Pickup logo marks the items available in the program. This is a huge development in e-commerce: building a network of businesses tied together by a third-party Web storefront. It's a clicks-and-mortar approach using Amazon's clicks and someone else's mortar.

CD Price Fixing Settlement

Music publishers are sending out checks as part of their $63 million settlement with the FTC over CD price fixing. MusicCDSettlement.com is a clearinghouse for settlement information. This FTC page gives the history of CD price fixing. In a nutshell, music publishers maintained artificially high prices by setting minimum advertised prices (MAP) for retailers.

As someone who's been on the receiving end of illegal manufacturer pressure to post minimum advertised pricing, I count this as a small but historic victory for consumers and independent retailers.

Google front page changes

Google has re-designed their front page and search results pages. Frankly, I think the new layout is less attractive, and makes Google's secondary search functions (for news, images, etc.) less noticeable. Usability expert Jakob Nielsen is an advisor to Google. I'll be interested if he has anything to say about the new design.

The other big change is that Froogle is linked from the front page. Froogle (pronounced "frugal") is Google's price-search service.

Unlike price-comparison services (PriceGrabber, MySimon, Nextag, etc.), Froogle doesn't require the e-tailer's co-operation. Froogle indexes prices the same way Google indexes Web page content. At the same time, Froogle will also read a price feed, which is how other price comparison services get their information. A price feed will result in more comprehensive and timely results for your site. One advantage of Froogle for e-tailers is that Google doesn't charge e-tailers for inclusion or click-throughs.

Another small change in Google's interface is in the Sponsored Links section of the search results page. Google no longer displays a bar graph indicating the percentage of users who clicked through to that advertiser.

Last Week's E-commerce Report

Les Jones is an e-commerce manager living in Knoxville, Tennessee. He offers consulting in Web design and site promotion, and programming in JavaScript, Web+ Markup Language, and the Web+Shop shopping cart system.

Posted by lesjones

Comments

Amazon's in-store pickup isn't new, and for many items, the price you pay isn't the amazon price, but the much higher regular retail.

Posted by: Spoons at March 30, 2004

eBay will never voluntarily clean up their act. It's too big of an expense. Ill will? Certainly there's some but they always have a legal way out. They rarely ever acknowledge the huge amount of "spoofing" (phony duplicate sites) that goes on although they have a special unit of programmers who try to deal with it. Much of the fraud that occurs on eBay can't readily be "proven" as such and the possible legal grief doesn't make it worthwhile. Someone who shops from time to time on eBay over a period of years can fairly easily detect a clear case of fraud. I say "power to the vigilantes." Large corporations can afford to write off a certain amount of loss due to dishonest means of whatever kind. The college kid defrauded in buying a laptop or the mother buying some clothing for her kids doesn't have that luxury.

Posted by: Steve at March 30, 2004

Spoons: thanks. I've made the corrections.

Posted by: Les Jones at March 30, 2004