emit-for you --July 25, 2001
Getting Back Inside the Box
Big box retailers Kmart and Wal-Mart are buying out the partners in their respective web operations, which they never should have separated from their off-line businesses.
Traditional retailers wasted millions of dollars setting up dot-coms that weren't integrated with brick-and-mortar stores. Like a lot of business decisions made when Internet money was stupid, the idea that people either shopped online or they didn't made no sense.
People use the 'Net to compare prices, check product availability, listen to sound clips, watch trailers and, of course, buy stuff. Increasingly, retailers are integrating online elements into their off-line stores; for example, some stores have implemented in-store kiosks that charge users to download music.
Look for Kmart and Wal-Mart to work more closely with music distributor Handleman, which is nine months into a three-year plan to invest up to $40 million in ecommerce initiatives, including web-based fulfillment and in-store kiosk systems.
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