| Term Paper Title | The Internet |
| # of Words | 1075 |
| # of Pages (250 words per page double spaced) | 4.3 |
The Internet
It was to be the great equalizer.
The Internet, with its octopus-like, global reach and affordable commercial real estate, was going to rewrite the rules of commerce, giving corporate CEOs and small-time home-business owners even odds at pioneering this digital shopping frontier.
Online advocates gushed over how the Net would foster never-before seen head-to-head competition between the commercial Davids and Goliaths in a forum where ideas and ingenuity, not just money and clout, marked the boundaries.
But as competition builds on the Internet, it appears that equal footing is gradually slipping away beneath small and medium-sized companies.
After investing $50,000 just to get a seat at the commercial Internet table a year ago, Baxter Phillip sees the Internet-induced level playing field as myth. Net commerce still slants against the little guy, says the vice president of the Chicago-area-based Phillip's 1-800-FLORALS, and he faces a steeper incline all the time. "The Internet is like a huge mall in the middle of the Sahara desert," Phillip says. "Once you get there, which is the first hurdle, all the competitors are lined up together, one next to the other. So where do you go? You gravitate towards the brand names you already know -- the biggies."
While Web site affordability has made it easier for companies like Phillip's to establish an Internet presence, the same is true for his competitors. Hence, a glut of small to medium-sized florists camp out on the Internet and fight to draw consumer attention to themselves and away from deep-pocketed and more recognizable competitors such as FTD and 800 Flowers.
"There are now so many [floral] sites that the worthwhile ones often become lost," says Lloyd Kennedy, founder and CEO of (888) Live Flowers. "And because of the overall florist presence, it is now virtually impossible to set yourself or your Web effort apart from the others."
From flowers to compact disks to food, online vendors face stiffer and stiffer competition from hundreds of thousands of comparable Web sites.
And as Internet commerce becomes subject to the same natural laws as the real life marketplace, the once-glistening promise of small-time operators taking on corporate giants armed with only their ingenious, basement-developed Web sites is dimming fast.
"The larger companies have so much of an advantage that it takes away lots of business from the smaller companies," says James Delong, part owner of CD ATTIC, a fledgling Tampa-based online music site competing with hundreds of similar sites. "A smaller company may need to buy in minimums of $500 to $600 from wholesalers and they are not given discounts.
Only larger companies with hundreds of different stores (such as Blockbuster Music, Sam Goody, etc.), can buy in minimums of $10,000 to $20,000 and get discounts from distributors. So for now, on the price side of things it will be very hard to compete and little profit will be made."
Still, even if you can't afford to distinguish your site with cut-rate prices or massive advertising campaigns, you can lure a loyal, if not m...Read entire document
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