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This past Christmas was notable for a number of reasons. As you probably know, Christmas is the annual two-month-long celebration of buying stuff, punctuated by one day of opening up all the stuff. And some other stuff goes on, too. But we're going to focus on the crass commercialism portion of it, because it's what you'll need to know when they start putting up next year's decorations in March. We've been noticing a lot of unsavory retailing trends advancing for years. Large stores have steadily elbowed in on smaller, independently owned competitors, putting them out of business. The bigger stores have then offered a steadily smaller range of products. It's become increasingly harder to find offbeat products in a least-common-denominator world. Of course, that's life—unfair as it might be. One reason people have avoided making online purchases is because it's so, well, impersonal. Meanwhile, the Mega-Lo-Mart has taken advantage of the lack of local competition
Contrast this to the joy of online shopping. You sit down, find what you want in two minutes, take an extra ten minutes to compare prices at another ten online stores, and buy. You get a box at your door three days later. You can find a source for any item you can think of, whether or not it's still in production. But what about being able to try something on? You know, walking into the store, finding something, putting it on to make sure it fits, and buying it? Sure, that works great—if you're a size M. Because for some reason, no other size is sold at retail. Check out the traffic at the mall—those window shoppers (us included) have to be at least 90 percent sizes XL and XXL. Now check out the assortment of clothes in any store. The three XXLs they got in last week are gone. There's nothing but a stack of Mediums staring back at you. Pants only come in certain measurements. You can find a 32 waist, 40 inseam pair. Or a 40/32. Or a 42/30. Or a 54/18. And that's it. No 42/34s exist. Why? Because the FAA has decreed that pants are to have total dimensions of 72". If you have a 30" waist, you have to purchase a 30/42 and take up 10" of cuff to make the pants fit. Online, you just click the size you want. It's either there or it isn't. You don't have to waste your time searching through rack after rack, table after table, for the one item that approximates your size. But surely face-to-face transactions are more secure, right? Think again. Do you know anyone who's had their credit card number stolen online, other than when someone named IAmTheOpNoReally@aol.com asked them to send it through email to "verify" their account? Now, know anyone who's been pickpocketed? Left their wallet at a store by accident? Got to the mall and had to return home to get their billfold? Leaving your home is a dangerous proposition. Sites like eBay have shown, really for the first time ever, what an unconstrained, nationwide free market can look like. In past years, there's always been the designated hot toy. The price of a Tickle Me Elmo was bid up higher and higher a couple of years ago, as saturation news coverage showed stores being picked bare. The classifieds were filled with people offering their dolls for hundreds of dollars. No one knew what people were actually paying for the inappropriately giggling little love. When Furby was preannounced as the toy that parents were obliged to fight over this past Christmas, the craze started. Then dozens of them appeared on eBay. People bought them for $150. Then $100. Then $75. Two weeks before Christmas, sellers couldn't even meet their minimum reserve prices of $60 on the horrific balls of furry plastic. Because purchasers had so much more information on the going price, they were able to make informed decisions and gauge supply and demand. In both promotion and reality, e-commerce reached critical mass this year. Consumers have been conditioned for it by the steady increase in catalog mailings over the past decade, so it's actually a more natural progression than it would have been. No matter where you live, you have access to all products sold around the world. And you don't ever again have to deal with the guy in front of you arguing with the clerk that the sign for the Sit 'N' Spew Rugrats game said $14.95, not $14.99. Note: you might have noticed that the column formerly known as Working Knowledge has been renamed Inside Knowledge in this issue. We feel that this name change will better reflect the renewed mission of this column—and, uh, it's not named the same as the Scientific American column anymore. Sorry 'bout that. —J.T.
From the February 1999 issue of Microsoft Internet Developer.
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