Electronic commerce has long way to go

[Marc Briceno <marc.briceno@usa.net>]

After watching Ian Goldberg's demo of all the neat things one can do on an
US Robotics Palm Pilot PDA, I decided to purchase such a device.

I headed to USR's website. The Pilot Pro is listed for $399. Always looking
for a bargain, I headed to Yahoo and quickly found several "best deal"
search engines. Some were better, some were worse, but they all pointed me
to a number of suppliers selling the Pilot Pro for as little as $339. A $60
savings over list or my local CompUSA store. Below is my experience with
the sites. The sites are listed in increasing order of amount charged for
the same item.

1. No online ordering. Call us during regular East Cost business hours.
2. No online ordering. No times are given.
3. Has online ordering. CC# is sent unencrypted.
4. Has online ordering and a link to a secure server. Link is stale.
5. Has online ordering and a link to a secure server. Link times out.

Guess I'll just swing by the CompUSA in the morning.

This is pathetic,