Two on going developments are the virtual mall and the virtual
catalogue.
There are well over 300 active virtual malls in the Internet.
They were frequented by 32.5 million shoppers, who shopped in
them for goods and services in 1998. The intranet can also be
thought of as a "virtual organization", or a "virtual
business".
The virtual mall is a computer "space" (pages) in the
internet, wherein "shops" are located. These shops offer their
wares using visual, audio and textual means. The visitor
passes a gate into the store and looks through its offering,
until he reaches a buying decision. Then he engages in a
feedback process: he pays (with a credit card), buys the
product and waits for it to arrive by mail. The manufacturers
of digital products (intellectual property such as e-books or
software) have begun selling their merchandise on-line, as
file downloads.
Yet, slow communications and limited bandwidth - constrain the
growth potential of this mode of sale. Once solved -
intellectual property will be sold directly from the net, on-
line.
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