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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, November 26, 2002

Convenience, not content, may be Net commerce's key

By Jon Swartz
USA Today

A slew of Internet companies that promised to make our lives easier — Webvan, Furniture.com and Pets.com — went kaput.

But similar ideas live on Web sites that draw thousands of visits from busy people looking for ways to do things better or faster. The sites thrive despite the fact that nearly 1,000 companies folded during the dot-gone era, deflating expectations that the Net would make much difference at all.

"The Internet is a total reversal of what Wall Street expected," said analyst Steven Vonder Haar of Interactive Media Strategies. "It delivers tailored and personalized services instead of entertainment and broadcast programming. In a word, it's practical." Contrary to its presumed obituary, the Net is saving consumers time, money and mall crawling with:

Health tips. The number of health-related sites with at least 50,000 monthly visitors has grown 25 percent to 160 in the past year, Jupiter Research said.

The most popular — including Medco Health Solutions (merck-medco.com) and Medline Plus (medlineplus.gov) — offer free medical information in simple language, tutorials and links to medical organizations.

Then there's insurance. eHealth Insurance (ehealthinsurance.com) offers information on scores of plans. Consumers can call company representatives for more. Its monthly audience has mushroomed 57 percent to 417,000 in the past year, Nielsen/Net Ratings said.

Shopping. Online grocer Webvan was a bust. But sites offering advice on products, cost comparisons and discounts have recorded spikes this year in viewership because cost-conscious consumers increasingly are shopping online. Online holiday retail sales are expected to jump 24 percent to a record $8 billion from a year ago, BizRate.com said.

As a result, Web audiences for Price Grabber, MySimon and DealTime — all of which help consumers find lowest-priced products — have grown at least 57 percent the past year. They average 1.9 million to 6.7 million visitors a month.

Fraud detection. A provision in the recently passed Sarbanes-Oxley Corporate Reform Act requires every publicly traded company to set up confidential systems for workers to raise red flags about corporate chicanery.

A new Web site, Ethicspoint (www.ethicspoint.com), lets employees report anonymously through cloaking technology. Ethicspoint then alerts company officials. Ethicspoint receives14 to 20 inquiries daily, company CEO David Childers said. Among its customers are BancInsure, an insurance firm, and Southwest Bank of Texas.

Computerized DMVs. The departments of motor vehicles in a handful of states — including Virginia, Louisiana, Utah and Georgia — offer online services for new or renewed driver's licenses, traffic school courses and license plate renewal.

Americans' everyday use of the Net reflects a comfort that is bound to grow as more people pay bills and buy stocks online.

"The naysayers got it wrong about the Internet," analyst Vonder Haar said. "It's not about creating content for consumers to gorge on. It's about making their lives simpler."

Personalized clothing. Consumers in search of perfectly fitting jeans and sneakers are flocking to several upstarts, prompting retail giants Nike (nikeid.com), Lands' End (landsend.com) and Levi Strauss (www.us.levi.com) to follow suit.

Web traffic for the Interactive Custom Clothes (ic3d.com) — which lets consumers create custom-made apparel and accessories — is growing 10 percent a month. Customers can select fabric and trim colors, including denim, silk, velvet, leather and faux fur. Jeans cost $75 to $120.

"We're the Dell of apparel," said CEO Peter del Rio, referring to Dell Computer. It has become the PC industry's most successful computer maker partly because it builds PCs based on what individual customers want.

Customatix (www.customatix.com), meanwhile, lets customers design sneakers, running shoes and other footwear. They can pick colors, logos, graphics and materials. Sneakers cost $70 to $100.