The Internet is rewriting the rule book on how consumers purchase everything from home furnishings to food, creating a new wave in commerce that is catching more and more trucking and affiliated operations in its swell.
With the click of a computer mouse, a buyer may order an entire living room suite of furniture and arrange to have it delivered and set up at home. Or a customer may access the Web site of her favorite supermarket, fill the electronic shopping basket with groceries and have everything delivered to her kitchen without waiting in the checkout line.
Several studies indicate that such computer-based consumer transactions are becoming more commonplace. During 1998, some 200,000 households went online to buy food, goods and services. Piper Jaffray Inc., a Minneapolis-based investment firm, expects the total value of purchases in cyberspace to reach $228 billion in 2001, with consumer-to-business transactions accounting for $25 billion of that amount. By 2007, at least 15 million household consumers are expected to spend $85 billion ordering goods via Web sites, according to the Consumer Direct Cooperative, a consortium led by Andersen Consulting.
With such numbers being tossed around, many trucking operations are finding electronic commerce and its potential profits too alluring to ignore. But the evolving e-commerce market has placed new burdens on trucking companies and especially their drivers, who, in delivering the goods, will represent the first face-to-face contact between the seller and the buyer.
For the full story, see the Jan. 3 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.
