The Silver Twinkle in Holiday 2001

Written by Rob Spiegel


Continued from page 1

According to Jupiter,repparttar Net retailers that sawrepparttar 109013 greatest increase in sales also have a brick component. Whilerepparttar 109014 Internet as a whole experienced a 50 percent increase in sales,repparttar 109015 traditional retailers saw their Web sales grow by 73 percent over 2000. "We've been waiting forrepparttar 109016 inevitable dominance of traditional retailers over their pure-play counterparts, and it appears that 2001 may have beenrepparttar 109017 year when it finally happened," said Ken Cassar, senior analyst at Jupiter Research. "With a few exceptions such as Amazon.com,repparttar 109018 dominant retailers that sell merchandise directly from their sites tend to be affiliated with brick-and-mortar stores and catalogs." The top three traditional retailers duringrepparttar 109019 holiday season were Columbia House, with 598,000 average daily unique visitors, Toysrus with 515,000 and Barnesandnoble with 447,000.

As well asrepparttar 109020 good news, there were also some less exciting developments duringrepparttar 109021 holiday season. The volume of orders that did not arrive on time for Christmas did not improve over 2000. Both years came in with a dismal 12 percent late delivery. The top performers for on-time delivery were sporting goods, health and beauty, and food and drink. Many online retailers blamed late shipments on delivery services. As for actual in-stock items, Net retailers actually did better thanrepparttar 109022 year before, so there may be some merit to their complains about delivery companies.

Overall,repparttar 109023 2001 holiday season was more than a silver lining aroundrepparttar 109024 dark cloud ofrepparttar 109025 2001 dot com disaster. The Christmas season may actually have ushered in a break inrepparttar 109026 stormy clouds, and that could indicate some real sunshine. Online retailing is clearly here to stay, even ifrepparttar 109027 big numbers are collecting onrepparttar 109028 balance sheets ofrepparttar 109029 major offline retailers.



Rob Spiegel is the author of Net Strategy (Dearborn) and The Shoestring Entrepreneur's Guide to Internet Start-ups (St. Martin's Press). You can reach Rob at spiegelrob@aol.com


Get into the Information Products Business!

Written by Robert Brents


Continued from page 1

That’srepparttar secret to writing, publishing, marketing and promoting how-to manuals: identify what concepts, experiences, and special knowledge you have that other people want and need in order to solverepparttar 109012 problems they have. Key point: people do not buy "how-to manuals", they buy solutions to their problems.

As you begin taking your first steps in this exciting business, keep in mind that it should be treated as a business. Also, recognize that any real business is not going to make you rich overnight. If your how-to manual fills a big enough need inrepparttar 109013 marketplace, you could find your self running a lucrative full-time enterprise (if that’s what you want). Beware ofrepparttar 109014 many scam artists out there who will make claims like "Learnrepparttar 109015 Secret Formula That Will Make Your Products Sell Like Crazy" or "Make $7,000 On The Internet In Seven Days Or Less" or "Increase Your Sales 1700% in Seventeen Days".

As a by-product of writing, publishing, marketing and promoting my other manuals, I learned from experience what has worked, as well as what hasn't. I won't jive you;repparttar 109016 path to profitability in this business (as in virtually all others) is not a short one. Be prepared to "stayrepparttar 109017 course".

Best Regards, Robert Brents, "The 80/20 Guy" http://www.RobertBrents.com For your free four-lesson e-seminar, How To Write, Publish, Market & Promote Profitable How-To Manuals, email mailto:freehowtoeseminar@sendfree.com Copyright 2002 Robert Brents and Blue Gecko Press.


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