But they all give you the opportunity to buy something on-line. The little guys can reach their local market 24 hours a day without the labor intensive department of Customer Service Representatives. They can reach a potential customer in Europe without ever picking up the telephone. They offer dangerously hot sauces for the craze that has captured America and is going international. They can sell directly in this international market, or find distributors in countries they never even considered, and achieve this without the cost and time it would have taken just 5 years ago.
Major cities get the lion's share of specialty products in stores.
Companies like VV can reach a consumer that doesn't want to drive into a city just to get wine, or possibly potential customers in the city who never even knew they existed. They have a good on-line catalog of women's bras and lingerie. Some experts estimate an Internet community of over 80 million by 1997. There is a possibility of a slowdown in the number of new subscribers, but at the current rate, the market available now is beyond any small company's dreams. The market has changed dramatically in the past year as well.