Chapter 17 – Section 3
Regulating the Internet
Phone Operator: Do you have an order number?
Reporter Anthony Mason: You can hear the bustle of holiday business at Michigan- based Moosejaw Mountaineering.
Girl on Phone: MOOOOOSEJAW!!!
Robert Woolf: So far business has been amazing.
Anthony Mason: Moosejaw sells outdoor clothing and gear in seven stores. But owner Robert Woolf says the place he is moving the most merchandise is on Moosejaw.com.
Robert Woolf: We’re up about 75% this year online compared to 2004.
Anthony Mason: This holiday season many shoppers are skipping those crowded stores and, like Kevin Brown, doing much of their shopping online.
Kevin Brown: You do it at home, you get what you want, and you get it quickly and cheaply.
Anthony Mason: So, just how much are we actually spending on the Internet? $18 billion this holiday season according to one projection; that’s up 25% over last year.
You can see the surge at Barnes and Noble.com.
Marie Toulantis: We’re tracking all that, constantly tracking all that.
Anthony Mason: CEO Marie Toulantis took us to the web site’s operations center.
Marie Toulantis: What we’re seeing here is as the day progresses, its 12:30 now New York time and you’ll see that the search rates are going up, the order rates are going up.
Anthony Mason: Barnes and Noble.Com was handling well over a hundred thousand searches an hour, in what will be the busiest week of the year.
Marie Toulantis: We could see a spike of four to five times our ordinary traffic in this particular week.
Anthony Mason: Of course, that means many people will be shopping at the office. Mondays are always the busiest day at Moosejaw.com.
Robert Woolf: And our theory is that the last thing people want to do when they get to work is work, so the first thing they do is start playing online.
Anthony Mason: Woolf says Moosejaw is now doing 65% of its business over the Internet.
Man on telephone: Which color are you looking for that in?
Robert Woolf: A while ago the Internet was really just a bonus to our business and now it really drives the entire business.
Anthony Mason: In the hectic holiday search for that perfect gift, more and more shoppers are finding its right there at their fingertips.
Man on phone: We can look it up by style number, that’s no problem.
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