Is the Internet ready for commodities?

by Chad Ledford

February 28, 2006 – 3tailer, LLC has launched what some would believe to be an odd eCommerce website. The site http://www.socks4life.com is an online store dedicated to the sale of socks and socks alone. Many concerns come to mind when one anticipates the feasibility of such a site. Do people actually buy socks on the internet? And if so, why? Yahoo’s Inventory.overture.com indicates that over 94,000 users a month search for the term “socks”, 3,200 search for “Men’s socks, and 1,500 search for “Women’s socks.”* The facts show that users are on the Internet searching for socks, but why would someone purchase socks from a website? A general assumption made by some Internet users is that you can purchase things online at a fraction of the price that you can in stores, due to the direct competition and availability of information. If someone is looking for a deal, the Internet is one of the first places turned to. 3tailer, LLC a http://www.3tailer.com [Charlotte Search Engine Optimization] company based out of North Carolina has set up an http://www.3tailer.com/eTail/eTail-projects.htm [eTail project] that encourages the theory regarding consumer demands for availability of commodity products on the web. The strategic debate surrounding commodity goods involve using a low price or distinguishing (branding) strategy. 3tailer developed the site using a researched low price transparency model similar to that outlined by Ariely, Dan: http://ebusiness.mit.edu/research/papers/117 Ariely, Wine.pdf [Wine Online: Search Costs and Competition on Price, Quality, and Distribution], 2000. Despite the intentional simplistic web design, the http://www.socks4life.com [socks] website has shown surprisingly promising signs of growth including increased traffic, sales, and customer satisfaction. 3tailer, LLC has successfully created a non-stylish low price conscious project that provides valuable data while also establishing itself as the Web’s most affordable sock store (that we can find). *Note that the above facts indicate the number of searches in the previous month and do not include variations on the keywords (which would increase the number of searches even further).

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