Internet Retailer: Top 500 Guide. Internet Marketing Conference/Exhibition

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	The foreign sales survey Description: Just a glance at the monthly numbers of the American balance of trade provides painful confirmation that America long ago lost its global hegemony in manufacturing. Yet America`s leading retailers are the most proficient merchants in the world and U.S. web sites are global leaders in the commercial use of the Internet. Given that record and the efficient global reach of the Internet, it would seem that America`s web-based retailers are well positioned to sell merchandise online overseas.
	Introducing the VWM team Description: To cover an industry, a magazine has to know the people who shape it. That is why we put industry leaders on the cover and rely heavily on interviews with experts explaining strategies, marketing plans, technology solutions. As we get closer to the industry, its only fitting for those we cover to learn more about us.
	Making the web feel safe Description: It is disheartening to read the research in this months special report on e-payments security (see report following page 34) which suggests that 40% of web users do not shop online because they feel threatened that their credit account and other identifying information might be stolen. Another 30% of online shoppers sharply restrict their web purchases out of the same fear. While e-retail sales grew nearly 30% last year, think how stunning the growth might have been were it not for the lingering perception that the web is unsafe when it comes to securing payments.
	What We Must Do Description: In the wake of the despicable and savage attacks on America on September 11, it is impossible to return to life as we knew it. It is difficult to focus on those things we are accustomed to doing. Difficult for us to publish this magazine. Difficult for you to operate stores, distribute catalogs, market web sites, and provide Internet services.
	See You in Chicago Next Year Description: It has been six weeks since we held our Internet Retailer 2005 Conference & Exhibition in Chicago, enough time to carefully review the 250 responses we collected from our online evaluation survey of paid conference attendees and read the many unsolicited kudos that were e-mailed from attendees, speakers and exhibitors alike. This post-show analysis leads to an inescapable conclusion: IR2005 was a huge hit!
	i Wants to Sell You a Car Now! Description: When we launched
	SmarterKids gives toy-buyers an education. But will kids love puzzles as much as Pokemon? Description: A particularly useful feature is MySmarterKids and its patent-pending SmartPicks system, which allow parents to customize their shopping and content-browsing. After parents set up learning profiles for each child, the site matches learning needs, goals and styles with merchandise tested and approved by teachers on staff. This feature is unique, but isnt showcased as well as it could be, since the site doesnt use cookies to identify those who have set up MySmarterKids. Instead, visitors who have used the feature see the same home page as everyone else, rather than a tailored one that takes them directly to their profile and product picks.
	There`s almost no end to all the clever features in store for shoppers at Lands` End Description: 20 seconds
	A contender in price and selection, Reel.com sweeps the content category Description: For customers who already have a movie in mind, finding it on Reel.com is a snap. The powerful and fast search engine, accessible from every page in the site, allows visitors to scour the database by title, actor or director. Choosing the advanced search allows you to search by other variables, such as ratings, price, and format (DVD, laserdisc, or VHS). You also can browse the sites data-base of movies by genre, such as action, animation, classics or comedy.
	This is Living.com: A fun, slightly buggy and almost purchase-less visit into a den of décor Description: Bagging the lamp project, I headed for accessories. A huge, handled basket filled the frame. I mean big. This baby looked perfect for holding my alarming pile of unread magazines. I checked the price: $69.95. For magazines?
	How Webvan hopes to leapfrog the competition to the customer`s front porch Description: The organizing concept behind Webvan, insists its proponents, is delivery, not food. The company strives to be in the consumers home on a reliable replenishing basis. That way, the customer depends more and more on the predictable appearance of the courier as a convenience and adds to each order.
	Beauty Jungle charts a course ranging from exotic world brands to the corner drugstore Description: Jean Lawrence is a freelance journalist based in Chandler, Ariz.
	Drugstore.com combines thoughtful customer service with old-fashioned browsability Description: Jean Lawrence is a feelance writer based in Chandler, Ariz.
	As dot-coms face retail reality, they are turning to catalogs Description: Batkin says the cost of mail-order can be offset for some companies by the built-in advantage of sending a catalog to those known to buy online. Browsers turn into buyers with those catalogs at a rate of 15-20%, he says, orders of magnitude above normal catalog returns.
	Picture This Description: Shoppers rely on pictures, but the images better enhance the user experience
	The Missing Metric Description: Whether a web site is successful depends on the definition of success
	The Importance of Browsing Description: Making it easy for customers to look through online merchandise
	It`s not just Amazon vs. CDnow anymore; there`s a whole lotta shakin` online Description: Like the ever-shifting sounds of popular music, a year can be an eternity in the annals of e-commerce. It was only last summer that CDnow Inc. was battling it out for the top music spot on the Web with Music Boulevard, which was owned by N2K Inc. The two were locked in a slugfest for the best banner ad slots, the smoothest customer service and the snazziest promotions with up-and-coming artists.
	E-commerce across borders: How to take a web site global Description: Interested in expanding your potential online audience by 200 million people? Simply add French, Italian, German, and Spanish web sites. Add Japanese and Chinese sites and youll gain another 200 millionwithout opening a single international office. According to the research firm Global Reach, already more than half of web users are not native-English speakers. By 2007, native-English speakers will make up fewer than a third of all Internet users.
	The opportunities and obstacles of merging high-fashion and e-commerce Description: At the heart of the matter is the challenge of creating an effective e-commerce site that doesnt make a fashion designer appear too much like Amazon.com. The fashion industry often goes out of its way to promote an image of exclusivity and glamour, yet the Internet is anything but exclusive and, due to fundamental technical limitations, anything but glamorous.
	If retailers don`t safeguard consumers` privacy online, the government will Description: Not long ago I dined at a restaurant and unbeknownst to me the waiter stole my credit card number. I found a whopping $1,253 charge on my statement the following week (the waiter was found to have a box of credit card receipts in his possession) and I didnt even think about security or privacy!
	When Eight Is Not Enough Description: The Webs long-term promise lies in delivering personalized, one-to-one service to customers at a fraction of the cost in other channels. Industry statistics put the cost of a phone call at about $4 per customer and IVR at 10 cents to $1 per call. Handling e-mail can cost even less. But the startup investments in Web-based customer-service technologies are anything but low budget. Between 60 to 70% of the cost of an interactive customer service Web site will be labor, Fluss adds, for deployment, maintenance, training and integration.
	Born Free Description: One prominent Internet retailer to adopt Linux as a platform is eToys. The site has suffered few service disruptions, a fact which Ferber, who is the former CIO of eToys, attributes to the capabilities of the platform. The Internet retailer, which sells 100,000 different childrens items from more than 750 manufacturers, had revenues of more than $151 million for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2000. The company has more than 2.4 million customers.
	Dont be a victim: When fraud strikes, youve got to do something about it Description: I have been working with merchants for several years helping them to prevent fraud. The number one question Ive encountered has been (and continues to be): What am I supposed to do when fraud occurs?
	Reaction Action Description: Retail marketers should react to an untapped audience twice the size of television
	Taking Their Time Description: It`s not shopping cart abandonment, it`s comparison shopping
	The Sales Tax Tug-of-War Description: For their part, congressional leaders see the issue through a different filter. Rather than focusing on the threat facing states and municipalities from untaxed electronic commerce, House Judiciary Subcommittee Chairman George Gekas (R-Pa.) opened recent hearings on the issue by warning that current multi-state taxing complexities threaten to stymie the full commercial potential of the Internet. Either way, part of the solution revolves around technology. The good news is that a growing number of software companies are developing powerful new programs that promise to streamline sales tax collection, both on the Internet and from traditional bricks-and-mortar sellers. Some of these systems are already in use by tax authorities in certain parts of the country. Washington state, for one, has developed a Geographic Information System, or GIS, that provides retailers hooked up to the Internet with the ability to determine the exact tax applicable to a street address.
	Shakeout & Sensibility Description: My oh my. If youre not already tossing and turning at night, ruminating overand overthe items on your To Do list like so many lost sheep, along comes a report from Forrester Research calling your very survival into question. Ever since the holiday wrappings and Y2K noisemakers were swept away, signs of turbulence have been adding up for e-retailers. The list of todays troubled Net companies reads like a section of yesterdays honor roll: Value America, Beyond.com, Cybershop, Peapod, CDnow...
	The pizza & candy quotient Description: Web stores, Ive recently learned, only seem to run on the latest techno tools. The real drivers are pizza, candy and stock options. At least thats the formula shared by e-retail executives this October at Internet Retailer World, our first conference for the industry.
	Reach out and sell someone Description: Sell to your customers as they want to be sold. Thats the decision facing e-retailers over installing live customer service technologies such as Web chat, collaborative browsing and voice over Internet. These technologies arent must-haves as much as tools retailers must use if their customers expect to be served that way, says Charles Rider, an analyst at the Patricia Seybold Group, Boston. When theres a lot of serendipity in the sale, multiple touch points make a big difference, especially with gifts or big-ticket goods.
	Because content counts at the checkout Description: Seeing is believing, but selling is proof. In fact, the pricier the goods an e-retailer sells, the greater the need for high-quality images showing fine details, says Gene Alvarez, e-business program director at the Meta Group, Stamford, Conn. Picture quality comes into play almost as much as a function of price as it does fashion, he explains. The more Im willing to spend, the more detail I want to see.
	The channel changers Description: At my house, the remote control typically produces more TV channel surfing than actual TV watching. Were not big TV viewers to begin with. But many nights, our search for mutually pleasing programming leads us to a series of five-minute segments from a half-dozen networksand an early lights out. We fall asleep with these scattered visions dancing in our heads: polar bears in mid-hunt, half-shingled houses, Lucy and Ethel stuffing themselves with chocolates in order to keep up with the conveyor belt in the candy factory. Good thing Ive already seen the ending to that one.
	From hide to seek, lost to found Description: When is a bedspread a comforteror a chenille throw? Issues such as this point up the challenge of creating reliable search functions on e-retail sites. The all-too-typical result is that search stinks, to quote a recent report by Forrester Research.
	No longer gone in 8 seconds Description: Customize the content, goes the thinking at CheckOut.com, and shoppers will load their carts with videos and DVDs to do just what the name suggests. Thats why the entertainment site wants to tailor every page to fit customers profilesand serve up to one million dynamically generated pages per hour. The goal was to do that without buying a lot of hardware or enough Oracle to make Larry Ellison really happy, says chief technology officer Edmond Mesrobian.
	The marts go portal Description: Is this the year of the big boxes on the Internet? Critics sneered at the first Web efforts of discounters Kmart and Wal-Mart, pointing to their cautious-at-best sites as proof that the big-box stores just didnt get e-commerce. Well, that was then.
	Dressed to Sell Description: With a wave of redesigns, web store executives set their sites on the bottom line
	Another Christmas story Description: Twas the week before Christmasand while you toiled, I sweated over gifts ordered online. Though I shop the Internet all year long, I had never put my entire Christmas list to the test. The results were mostly positive, but two experiences stand out.
	Web chat is the latest boom in e-service. But what does it do for your bottom line? Description: Not everyone is bullish on Web chat, if only because Web technology keeps moving. Id like to see the whole interactive arena stabilize, says Christopher Merritt, a principal at Kurt Salmon Associates in Atlanta. Theres a demand for click-to-chat because its one of the easier functions to add today. But if I do that, how long will it be before voice or video comes along?
	Business Unusual Description: Whether you grumbled, yawned or crossed your fingers over the recent exploits of crackers, carders and thieves on the Internet, you have to admit that security has become the years sleeper issue. Its time to wake up, if only because the potential cost in diminished public confidence is spread equally among Internet merchants.
	Welcome to Internet Retailer Description: Welcome to the first issue of
	Doing the math Description: Calculating online sales is not as easy as it looks
	Online selling bucks the Holiday 2001 retailing trend: Sales are up sharply Description: Online retailers held their breath as the Christmas shopping season got off. Dire predictions of the state of retailing in this economy gave many retailers a higher degree of uncertainty than they had experienced since the rise of Internet-based retailing in the mid 1990s.
	Retailers turn to technology to make web reach its promise of personalized recommendations Description: When it comes to personalizing the web experience, Bookspan LLP has both an advantage and a disadvantage. Its advantage is that customers cant come onto the web site unless they register, so Bookspan knows a lot about them before they even do anything on the site. The disadvantage is that information about customers resides in a legacy database so Bookspan cant always deliver up personalization while the customer is still on the web site. We know a lot about our customers alreadytheir purchase history and their account history, says Steven Brita, director of Internet marketing for Bookspan, which operates book clubs. But we need to make sure that when they are online the personalization we provide is as accurate as possible with the legacy data.
	Behind The Scenes Description: Web-based niche applications are getting their small pieces of the retail market
	Defining Content Description: Why Hewlett-Packard decided content management is crucial to its future
	Credit to the Web Description: With credit card processing, retailers find yet another way to use the Internet
	Holly jolly online shopping Description: Another Q4 of near 25% growth
	The Information Age Description: The new web site content: Its about sales and stickiness
	Despite the gloom and doom, the online grocery sector isnt dead Description: To judge by the struggles for profitability that Webvan Group Inc. and Peapod Inc. have been undergoing, or the high-profile flameout of Kozmo.com, or the crashes of any number of grocery web sites with national distribution ambitions, one would have to conclude that selling groceries on the Internet and delivering them before the food goes bad is a doomed venture.
	Re-assessing drop shippingagain Description: Back in the early days of online retailing, the term virtual merchant meant just thatsuch retailers were all but merchants. Many stocked no inventory and had no customer service reps.