What Are People Buying Online?

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by Nathan Lindsey

We know that more and more people are buying things online nowadays. Ads for eCommerce sites are all over the television and radio airwaves. Whoopi is hocking online currency, and Captain Kirk's crooning about cheap airfare. But while Amazon posted sales of $638 million this past quarter, the shoulder of the information superhighway is littered with the likes of AutoWeb.com and Pets.com (who for one reason or other ended up as roadkill).

One big reason for this is that online consumers just weren't interested enough in buying the products that these companies were selling. Finding a market where there aren't any other e-Tailers isn't enough to ensure success. Enough people have to be willing to buy what you offer. Duh, I know, but it really is an important aspect of eCommerce that is often ignored. The sites that have the highest sales tend to sell certain types of products. If you're planning on selling things on the Web, you'd do well to make sure know what those categories are.

This can be attested to by many of the recent eCommerce failures. Pets.com had a great advertising campaign with that cute Sock Puppet mascot. They had brand recognition. They had investors. They didn't have customers. Now they're not around anymore. Why? I'm gonna guess that it has something to do with the fact that there were too many pet supply sites out there for not enough online pet supply buyers. Ditto for Furniture.com, Hardware.com, and Bbq.com, all of which have recently closed up shop.

Despite the constant deluge of sites going out of business, Internet sales have steadily risen all year from $2.4 billion in February to $4.4 billion in October, and they are, of course, expected to rise even higher with the now-upon-us holiday shopping season. One survey says that 28% of Americans (19.4 million people) will shop online this holiday season, and this number has been increasing dramatically over the past few years. So it's not like there's a lack of potential customers out there. But these online shoppers are mainly focusing on certain "safe" items that they are comfortable purchasing on the Net.