What power does ICANN have in the industry? According
to ICANN, "The Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the non-profit corporation
that was formed to assume responsibility for the IP address
space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain
name system management, and root server system management
functions previously performed under U.S. Government
contract by IANA and other entities."
Traditional Retailers Surge on the Web
Although Amazon.com remains the top web purchase site
in October, traditional and catalog retailers staged
a strong and steady surge, according to the October
PC Data Online's Top 20 Buying Meter Report.
With 1.5 million buyers and over 21 million unique users,
amazon.com towered above most etailers and bested the
number of projected buyers for the next three ranked
web sites combined. Ticketmaster.com in the No. 2 position
had 677,000 projected buyers in October, cdnow.com at
No. 3 had 455,000 and barnesandnoble.com at No. 3 had
409,000.
At the same time traditional catalog and retail name
brands increased their number of transactions in October.
In addition to ticketmaster.com and barnesandnoble.com,
jcpenney.com (No.5), sears.com (No. 8), spiegel.com (No.
9), landsend.com (No. 11), gap.com (No. 17), staples.com
(No.18), quixtar.com (Amway) (No. 19) and bestbuy.com
(No. 20) secured position in the Top 20 in October.
"Traditional retailers are becoming a force online
this year," said Cameron Meierhoefer, Internet analyst
for PC Data Online. "Last Holiday season, online
retailing was seen as a threat to traditional brick-and-mortar
retailers. This year these same retailers are benefiting
the most from the growth in online shopping."
Heavily advertised pets.com made what could be its farewell
appearance among the top etailers in the No. 12 position
with 147,000 buyers. Pets.com closed its virtual doors
on Nov. 9 due to a lack of funding.
Speigel.com had the highest buy rate percentage with
15 percent, followed by drugstore.com with 14.2 percent
and ticketmaster.com with 12 percent.
Data for online buying activity is gathered through
a proprietary software tool that tracks "unique
visitors" and "unique buyers" on each
web site. Each visitor or buyer is counted once, regardless
of how many times the individual visits a site or buys
from a site. This sample includes over 120,000 home Internet
users. Total home Internet users are estimated at approximately
81 million.
PC Data Online defines Internet retail sites as web
sites where visitors can actually purchase products.
They include neither shopping domains that provide free
downloads, product reviews, or purchasing incentives,
such as coupons, nor other types of e-commerce sites,
such as auction, travel reservation or financial service
sites.
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