Richard A Feinberg, director of Purdue University s Retail Institute stated When home shopping networks first appeared on television, experts started telling us that consumers would eventually do all of their shopping at home by phone. What these purveyors of doom fail to realize is that a tremendous number of individuals truly enjoy the shopping experience. They love to see, feel and try out merchandise before they buy. Feinberg continues If your customers and services are unique and fairly narrow in scope, there s a much better chance your product will be discovered and sell well on the Internet, but you have to remember that Internet shopping is nothing more than an electronic catalog, and that returns will kill you, as they do with regular catalog sales. Returns are a tremendous headache in an electronic medium.
Consumers still have concerns over security issues on the Internet.
Consumers are very leery of providing credit card numbers to unknown Internet retailers, electing to call the 800 number to close the transaction. While security issues are being improved, this basic reluctance of the consumer will keep Internet sales from growing larger until the consumer is satisfied that his credit card numbers are secure from theft. Consumers are currently enjoying a lack of sales tax collection on Internet sales, unless there is a physical presence or nexus in that taxing jurisdiction. The large retailer will continue to adapt to the new electronic sales. In the past, retailers have been the leaders in change.