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.
