Word: america
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...online auctions are shaking up the way America does business. People are quitting their day jobs and finding they can support themselves entirely by selling on eBay and other auction sites. Traditional retailers are significantly augmenting their revenue by selling on eBay, and some are shutting down their stores entirely. Businesses that piggyback onto online auctions--insurers, shippers, escrow services--are booming. Offline businesses that compete with eBay--from antiques stores to classified-ad sections--are bracing for trouble...
eBay--and the online-auction phenomenon it has spawned--is redrawing America's business landscape. There's scarcely a company in America that won't be affected by the new rules of commercial engagement. "Every week someone will come up to you and say this has changed my business entirely, and you can fill in the blank for what business," says eBay vice president of marketing and business development Steve Westly. "A guy came up to me at the National Auctioneers Association and said, 'I'm in the bull-semen business, and eBay's completely changed the access I have...
Moreover, eBay has exposed America as a nation of collectors. Matchbook covers, cast-iron witches' cauldrons, Pez dispensers, pneumatic grease pumps from the 1920s, Three Stooges memorabilia--you name it, some American somewhere collects it. "We define ourselves by our stuff," says Robert Thompson, president of the Popular Culture Association and a Syracuse University professor who specializes in the study of collectibles. In a democracy, with everyone theoretically equal, people want to be different. We don't have a caste system; we've never had a blood-line aristocracy. We've distinguished ourselves by our cars, by the clothes...
...infrastructure cost that off-line plays do," says Mike May, an analyst at Jupiter Communications, an e-commerce research firm in New York City. "A single point of sale can be used to reach an entire country or the entire world." As Jay Herratti, president of Boo.com North America, a sportswear e-tailer, put it, "We could be global from...
...Mighty America Online just signed up to help pass out the punch. Last week Wal-Mart and AOL confirmed plans to launch a co-branded, low-cost Internet service by next spring. In-store kiosks will help introduce shopping at wal-mart.com--and probably the new ISP--to the yet-untapped market strolling Wal-Mart's aisles...