s are on the decline.

Second, many people are now more than willing to pay to receive quality services and products even if they were offered for free earlier. Several paid content websites have already proven this unmistakable trend. The discerning buyer values his/her time as also the quality of information or service and is willing to pay for it.

However, not all products can be sold on the Internet. Some products may be better suited for online sales than others; others simply will not work on this new commercial medium. Acco

After the settling down of the dot-com bubble, sanity checks have brought realistic expectations to the fore. Initially, a backlash was seen, forecasting the doom of the Internet. Finally, merits have made the Internet gain its rightful place. In breakthroughs that show the promise of e-commerce wasn't all smoke and mirrors, four dot-coms recently reported their first quarterly profits. The list of the Internet’s publicly held moneymakers includes eBay Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Yahoo! Inc., Overture Services Inc., Expedia Inc.,FindWhat.com Inc. and E-Trade Group Inc. Several privately owned dot-coms, including search engines Google and DealTime, say they have been making money, too.

In 2001, the last full year where numbers are available, the Department of Commerce broke out e-commerce sales versus total U.S retail sales which revealed the $3.16 trillion retail industry saw a total of $37.7 billion in sales take place online -- comprising 1.2 percent of the total. This year e-commerce is tracking about the same. Through the third quarter, the last full quarter where numbers are available, total retail sales were $856 billion versus $11 billion in e-commerce, about a 1.3 percent share.

There were big gains made in Home and Garden, a 78 percent increase; Furniture and Appliances, a 75 percent increase; and Toy shopping online with a 61 percent increase in the year 2002. There is no doubt that online shopping is growing.

Nielsen//NetRatings found that more than 35.5 million U.S. Internet users made shopping trips to virtual department store sites during the week ending November 3, 2002 - that's a 20 percent increase from the week ending October 20 and roughly 14 million more than almost the same time period in 2001.

There is a growing tendency amongst Internet users to pay for valuable content online. There are many reasons for this. First, only a few websites operated by big companies can afford to provide valuable content without being compensated. The rest of us can't be so generous. And trying to recapture our expenses by selling advertising on our websites has failed to pay the bills. Online advertising and click-through rates are on the decline.

Second, many people are now more than willing to pay to receive quality services and products even if they were offered for free earlier. Several paid content websites have already proven this unmistakable trend. The discerning buyer values his/her time as also the quality of information or service and is willing to pay for it.

However, not all products can be sold on the Internet. Some products may be better suited for online sales than others; others simply will not work on this new commercial medium. Acco

. and E-Trade Group Inc. Several privately owned dot-coms, including search engines Google and DealTime, say they have been making money, too.

In 2001, the last full year where numbers are available, the Department of Commerce broke out e-commerce sales versus total U.S retail sales which revealed the $3.16 trillion retail industry saw a total of $37.7 billion in sales take place online -- comprising 1.2 percent of the total. This year e-commerce is tracking about the same. Through the third quarter, the last full quarter where numbers are available, total retail sales were $856 billion versus $11 billion in e-commerce, about a 1.3 percent share.

There were big gains made in Home and Garden, a 78 percent increase; Furniture and Appliances, a 75 percent increase; and Toy shopping online with a 61 percent increase in the year 2002. There is no doubt that online shopping is growing.

Nielsen//NetRatings found that more than 35.5 million U.S. Internet users made shopping trips to virtual department store sites during the week ending November 3, 2002 - that's a 20 percent increase from the week ending October 20 and roughly 14 million more than almost the same time period in 2001.

There is a growing tendency amongst Internet users to pay for valuable content online. There are many reasons for this. First, only a few websites operated by big companies can afford to provide valuable content without being compensated. The rest of us can't be so generous. And trying to recapture our expenses by selling advertising on our websites has failed to pay the bills. Online advertising and click-through rates are on the decline.

Second, many people are now more than willing to pay to receive quality services and products even if they were offered for free earlier. Several paid content websites have already proven this unmistakable trend. The discerning buyer values his/her time as also the quality of information or service and is willing to pay for it.

However, not all products can be sold on the Internet. Some products may be better suited for online sales than others; others simply will not work on this new commercial medium. Acco

s are available, total retail sales were $856 billion versus $11 billion in e-commerce, about a 1.3 percent share.

There were big gains made in Home and Garden, a 78 percent increase; Furniture and Appliances, a 75 percent increase; and Toy shopping online with a 61 percent increase in the year 2002. There is no doubt that online shopping is growing.

Nielsen//NetRatings found that more than 35.5 million U.S. Internet users made shopping trips to virtual department store sites during the week ending November 3, 2002 - that's a 20 percent increase from the week ending October 20 and roughly 14 million more than almost the same time period in 2001.

There is a growing tendency amongst Internet users to pay for valuable content online. There are many reasons for this. First, only a few websites operated by big companies can afford to provide valuable content without being compensated. The rest of us can't be so generous. And trying to recapture our expenses by selling advertising on our websites has failed to pay the bills. Online advertising and click-through rates are on the decline.

Second, many people are now more than willing to pay to receive quality services and products even if they were offered for free earlier. Several paid content websites have already proven this unmistakable trend. The discerning buyer values his/her time as also the quality of information or service and is willing to pay for it.

However, not all products can be sold on the Internet. Some products may be better suited for online sales than others; others simply will not work on this new commercial medium. Acco

percent increase from the week ending October 20 and roughly 14 million more than almost the same time period in 2001.

There is a growing tendency amongst Internet users to pay for valuable content online. There are many reasons for this. First, only a few websites operated by big companies can afford to provide valuable content without being compensated. The rest of us can't be so generous. And trying to recapture our expenses by selling advertising on our websites has failed to pay the bills. Online advertising and click-through rates are on the decline.

Second, many people are now more than willing to pay to receive quality services and products even if they were offered for free earlier. Several paid content websites have already proven this unmistakable trend. The discerning buyer values his/her time as also the quality of information or service and is willing to pay for it.

However, not all products can be sold on the Internet. Some products may be better suited for online sales than others; others simply will not work on this new commercial medium. Acco

s are on the decline.

Second, many people are now more than willing to pay to receive quality services and products even if they were offered for free earlier. Several paid content websites have already proven this unmistakable trend. The discerning buyer values his/her time as also the quality of information or service and is willing to pay for it.

However, not all products can be sold on the Internet. Some products may be better suited for online sales than others; others simply will not work on this new commercial medium. According to an Ernst and Young study, the most popular online purchases are computer related products (40%), books (20%), travel (16%), clothing (10%), recorded music (6%), subscriptions (6%), gifts (5%) and investments (4%).

Businesses offering paid services have also prospered enormously. The top three categories (Business Content/Investment, Entertainment/Lifestyles and Personals/Dating) accounted for 62% of all paid content revenues in the first three quarters of 2002. The total market for paid online content in the U.S. grew to $361.4 million for the quarter, a 14 percent gain over the previous quarter and a 105.3 percent gain over Q3 2001. An interesting statistic put forward by this report is that 85% of money spent by U.S. Consumers for online content goes to the top 50 sites in most of the categories.

The graph below (Top 3 Content Categories) is indicative of this change.

In terms of “stickiness” of different categories, Business sites - especially finance and investment rank the highest. In other words, users are more likely to spend longer time surfing through a business website compared to other categories. This study was conducted by Nielsen//NetRatings. The table below shows the most addictive web categories for 2002.

Category Time per person

(hr:min:sec)Audience
Business – Finance and Investment 0:21:33 - 51,586
General News 0:15:47 - 64,822
Entertainment 0:14:32 - 45,922

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings

According to the above figures a person spends about 22 minutes on a finance website on an average.