Word: shopped
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Many antiques dealers, who would seem most threatened by eBay, have seen their livelihoods transformed. David James, for example, opened his shop in Alexandria, Va., eight years ago. He deals mostly in what the trade calls smalls: candlesticks, glassware and other such collectibles. He's still got the store, but today his business--and his life--revolve around a warehouse a few miles away, where he stores the treasures he has gleaned from scouting estate sales and flea markets. From a cramped, windowless cubicle, he monitors the hundreds of auctions he has posted--moving anywhere from...
...been an Internet, of course, there have been anti-Internet fuddy-duddies, pessimists who lament the end of face-to-face sociability as people retreat from the bustling public square to their computers for the anonymous encounters of cyberspace. With some justification, the pessimists can trace the decline of shopping, that most social of activities, from the mom-and-pop corner shop, where everyone knows everyone else, to the department store, where we might recognize one of the cashiers, and from there to the vast warehouse of the superstore, where no one knows anyone--and finally to the Internet, where...
...tough to see why 100 million customers shop at Wal-Mart every week. The nation's top retailer sells everything from sweatpants to string beans, rakes to Ritalin. It keeps its prices low, its shelves stocked and its big, wide aisles peppered with blue-smocked clerks. The company will ring up about $160 billion in domestic sales by year's end, with profits on track to top $5 billion. With that kind of scratch--and a proven knack for giving people what they want--the House That Sam Built seems a shoo-in for success in cyberspace...
...shipping directly to consumers, an essential link in the e-commerce chain. To fill the gap, Wal-Mart has contracted Books-A-Million and Fingerhut to pick, pack and ship online orders--most likely a short-term solution. The company will also have to grasp how online shoppers shop. Choosing products to splash on its home page isn't like stocking razor blades by the check-out. "This is where it's behind the learning curve," Cooperstein says, "but it will learn." And before long, it may be time to dig into that souffle. Priced at a discount, of course...
Indeed, supermarkets are fighting back with their own Net groceries that emphasize name-brand trustworthiness. Take Maine-based Hannaford Bros., which owns Shop 'n' Save stores across the Eastern U.S. Hannaford set up HomeRuns.com which has upped the ante by offering a double-your-money satisfaction guarantee. It's already doing brisk business in the Boston area. That's no mean feat. Boston is a nasty little incubator of Web grocers and boasts four firms in cutthroat competition; one company, Streamline, will pay to install a fridge in your garage, allowing the Web store to make unattended deliveries...