Concerned, she called Gateway. Instead, she had to speak with a special Internet order division. Contrast that to a high-touch retail operation such as Nordstrom, where solicitous salespeople stand by ready to render immediate, personalized assistance on any issue, and it seems like the Web has a long way to go. Where the Web really shines is in giving customers a way to shop quickly and efficiently. Granted, not every site meets that ideal, as my friend discovered.
Retail companies use the Web to reduce their per-customer costs.
One way they do this is to eliminate the need to pay salespeople to give personal attention to each customer. Fry's has lowered its overhead by skimping on customer service, which enables it to undercut its competitors' prices. In other words, Web stores are not competing with Nordstrom. If they try to, they will fail, because personal service will always be better in person than over the Net. He edits InfoWorld's intranet and Internet-commerce product reviews.