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Oct. 6, 1999
''N ational M in o r it y business MJeek
C17
E-COMMERCE
INNOVATIONS
iNsrmnE
The following E-commerce tech­
nologies are currently being developed
to meet the consumer’s need for easier
“virtual” shopping on the Internet.
The Smart Agents is an online tech­
nology for searching out the best deal
for the consumer. As an example, if
someone was going to buy a new re­
frigerator, they could program their
Smart Agent to go out there and put in
what features, style and brand names
they want. The Smart Agent would go
around to all o f the W eb sites and
negotiate a deal on behalf o f that con­
sumer.
This technology comes in handy if a
city, county or state is putting out a
City of
PORTLAND, O R EG O N
The City of Portland is working with minority,
women and emerging small business entrepre­
neurs to enhance employment opportunities.
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OFFICE OF PUBLIC UTILITIES
B y T homas F rey of the D a V inci
There’s a lot o f anxiety by people
over using credit cards on the Internet.
This is probably the # 1 reason for many
to hesitate doing their shopping this
way.
A pre-paid credit card in small
amounts o f $ 10 or $20 would make it
so that people would feel much freer to
purchase things over the Internet. This
would benefit the many who need credit
such as those with bad credit, foreign­
ers, kids and others. The number o f
people willing to buy this way would
increase dramatically. For merchants,
there can only be an upside to it be­
cause there w ould m ore available
money on the Internet.
C u rre n tly , th e co m p an y , E-
charge.com has figured out how to
make purchases over the Internet and
have it charged to your telephone bill.
The main complication involved in
setting up a pre-paid credit card is the
extra number o f digits required, mak­
ing it technically complicated and sub­
stantially costly to deal with. The mer­
chants and bankers would have to be set
up to receive a credit card with 20 or
more digits on it.
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request for proposals and they want
people to bid on it. They could send out
the Smart Agent program on the Internet
and it would automatically go out to
people and work with them to get their
bid on the proposal and actually bargain
back and forth between two people as a
way to get the lowest dollar.
There are those who don’t like this
approach.
One o f the problems with selling
online is that the philosophy has always
been thin-margins, high volume. You
are working with a big market and you
cut your cost down so that you’re mak­
ing small profits on every one that’s
sold. It’s a cut-throat business where
people are trying to build customer
bases, trying to build a good number o f
web hits. They are actually selhngprod-
ucts at a loss so that they can get the
num ber o f web hits up to as high as
possible thinking that in the future,
they’re going to be able to sell prod­
ucts that are more profitable. That’s
not been proven yet. There’s a lot o f
games being played on the Internet
right now just to build your customer
base, to build brand and name recogni­
tion.
ITIE E -(O M M I R( I M Ml
BOX
W hen the husband and wife are
both working and there ’ s nobody home
to receive deliveries, people don’t buy
things over the Internet because there ’ s
not an easy way for things to get deliv­
ered. You don’t w ant to wait at the
doorstep for the delivery guy to show
up.
An inventor named David Porter
has developed a E-commerce mail­
box called the “Smart Box”. This is an
intelligent delivery box where if you
get groceries delivered, it keeps things
at the right temperature and the deliv­
ery people can access it 24 hours a
day. There are several different proto­
types for this “Smart Box”. It sits in
front o f your house and are designed
to not be too obtrusive such as the
bench seat model or the collapsible
type. Such an invention is one o f the
missing links to the E-commerce in­
dustry. This may be the next major
appliance that everyone gets. The
“Smart Box” is not available yet. To
le a rn m o re a b o u t th is go to
w w w , smartbox.com on the Internet.
Thomas Frey, a fo rm er IB M engi­
neer, is senior researcher a n d co­
founder o f the D aVinci Institute, a
fu tu r e -s tu d ie s o rg a n iza tio n th a t
concentrates on inventions and tech­
n o lo g y.
H is
w e b s ite
is
www.mammoth.org/ - davinci
We j oin in the celebration of Minority Business
Development Week, an opportunity to acknowl­
edge the successes that provide role models for
our youth.
We are committed to the availability of training
as well as the use of the purchasing power of
the City.
Jim Francesconi
1221 S.W.Fourth Avenue
Portland, O regon 97204
(503) 823-3008
(503) 823-3017 -F A X
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Business Week
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Edition o f The Portland Observer.
Even though this is a Special
Relationship with The Portland
Observer. Portland Parks and
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and events is an important
Contributor. Thanks for the Support
and the Great work that you do.......
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Charles Jordan
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