Bezos claims that 4.5 per cent of American 'web households' visited his site in August 1997. Although he foresees more losers than winners in the great game of web merchandising, Schwartz has high hopes for Bezos's firm and for electronic bookselling generally. The product lends itself to the peculiarities of webonomics. Book readers and advanced computer users overlap. Books are diverse and each title is 'unique'.
Customers like to sample books before making a purchase.
In fact, you can't buy all the '2.5 million titles'. If you order a book it will, for instance, tell you what other titles other people ordering that book have selected. You can thus profile yourself. There's a 'customer buzz' link and an e-mail conversation 'room'. There is a 'Right Book for the Right Place' link.