Internet shopping, commonly referred to as "e-tail" (Foley, 2001) is the process of buying and selling merchandise over the Internet. "eBusiness" is rapidly replacing traditional business for virtually any type of retail transaction. Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com was a visionary that was able to see the benefit of efficiently leveraging the retail sale of books by means of the Internet. While others such as Pierre Omidyar (eBay) also had the vision, it was Bezos that had the most complete vision and the ability to bring the appropriate resources to bear to capitalize on the opportunity. As such, his vision has become the point of reference for any organization that is looking to sell product in the online environment (Ramo, 1999, 1).
Bezos has taken his original model and expanded it beyond its original niche (books) and today the company sells everything from power tools to CDs and is continually looking for new areas in which to expand (Ramo, 1999, 2). The new global nature of the marketplace is such that those individuals empowered with the greatest amount of information will win (Ramo, 1999, 2).
In the past, it was the seller who held the advantage with respect to "information." Today, the scales are rapidly tipping in favor of the consumer, largely because of the information empowerment provided by the Internet.
While originally created by the Defense Department, until 1994, the Internet (then it was still called the "World-Wide-Web") had been an essentially "commerce-free" environment. Bezos determined very early that he could become a "first-mover" in a business model that utilized this new medium of communication (i.e., eBusiness) and embarked on research to determine which products sold well on a mail order basis. He believed that if a product sold well in this environment, it would do well in an on-line arena. He also looked for where he could create or add value to the customer experience. ...