The ability to buy groceries off of Gary's Web page has absolutely nothing to do with my education. No one's going to read a manual in order to buy groceries from me. His company offers free home delivery for groceries over the Internet. It's picked up customers from Ralph's, a local grocery store that offered home delivery, which recently closed. His company can always roll out an improved Web site.
Consumers are very forgiving.
In general, companies believe high-tech consumers are willing to overlook quality problems. But corporations demand much higher quality, he said, when they use Internet technology to run core operations. Established retailers are expected to lose a relatively small percent of sales to online rivals, maybe 10 percent in the next few years in the supermarket industry, for instance. Panelists agreed that many traditional companies can shift part of their businesses to the Internet, whether they create storefronts or move back-office functions to data networks. To boost North Texas' environment for start-ups, Sevin Rosen induces companies it invests in to move from Silicon Valley to the Dallas area.