Some give customers the ability to buy goods directly from their own sites. Time Warner, the media and entertainment company, has a marketplace on its Web site featuring retailers selling books, music, travel, computers and electronics, vitamins and more. Even buying a car, more of an investment than a typical retail purchase, is possible to do through a number of auto marketplaces, online classified sites, and manufacturers' own sites. By 2000, they project that the Internet will be used in at least 21 percent of all new car and truck purchases. As in other areas, the growth of online retailing is being driven by cost savings, the ability to customize marketing, and increased consumer convenience.
Virtual stores report lower operating costs than their physical counterparts.
Although its online business generates only 10 percent of its total revenues, its profit contribution to the overall business is nearly that of its store-based business which generates 20 percent of total revenues. Retailers can use this information to attract new customers by sending mailings to consumers living in certain zip codes that fit given demographic or other specialized profiles. Databases of existing customers may be even more detailed, allowing retailers to send more targeted offers. In either case, these direct mailings often take time and significant expense to compile, mail and then review their effectiveness. It knows who is there because of a technology that records the Internet address of the visitor and matches it to a name if the visitor has already registered or purchased something at the site.