New frontier for the last frontier.

• Author: Middleton, Saundra
• Position: Potentials of Alaska for electronic commerce

E-commerce, defined as the ability to transact business over an electronic median, includes ATM and point-of-sale purchases, direct deposit of paychecks, and on-line credit card transactions. But when most people think of e-commerce, they think of the growing world of Internet commerce, a new industry sure to benefit Alaska and its businesses.

Combine the Last Frontier with e-commerce - the latest frontier in the business world - and you'll get a mix that could very well put Alaska on a technological road to high-volume international business.

Many industry professionals believe Alaska is perfect for developing e-commerce for several reasons. One is its high percentage of small businesses, which can benefit from the low-cost, worldwide exposure Internet provides. Experts estimate roughly one-third of Alaska's businesses are home-based mom and pop operations.

Additionally, the great expanse of the state makes cyber shopping a viable option for Alaskans - particularly rural Alaskans who may have limited product markets, not to mention minimal choices for product purchases.

Also, Alaska, when compared to the Lower 48, has a high per capita Internet usage. This trend may indicate increased in-state sales since many Alaskans would rather support an Alaska business than an Outside one.

As bandwidth improves with the coming of fiber optic cables, even more Alaskans will jump onboard the e-com train. The new cable modems entering the state will also allow users the bandwidth they need to host their own web sites - even from home.

One in support of e-commerce is the Anchorage Economic Development Corp. With a grant from the Alaska Science and Technology Foundation, AEDC is promoting Anchorage as a distribution hub for on-line businesses.

Patricia Demarco, AEDC president, said that Internet customers are often half a world away from the retail center they are ordering from, in which case the product may not get to the customer for a week or more. Not good considering studies show on-line customers expect to receive their Internet purchases within two days.

Conveniently, Anchorage is a nine-hour flight from many retail hubs in the world. This makes Anchorage an attractive staging area and customer service center' for many product-based businesses on-line. Additionally advantageous is that Alaska's normal business hours are accessible to East Coast and East Asian business hours.

BILLIONS TO BE HAD

According to projections by eMarketer's eCommerce, an...