The Dot.Com Shakeout Is Underway.

• Position: Online shopping - Brief Article - Industry Overview

After a shaky Christmas season, the nation's electronic retailers are facing the final moments of the critical introductory phase of their new industry, and the great shakeout is about to begin, predicts Robert Robicheaux, Bruno Professor of Retail Marketing, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. "Make way for bankruptcies, mergers, consolidations, and other forms of organizational disaster. The lessons learned during the maturation of the railroad industry, the airline industry, and, more recently, the computer industry are about to apply to the dot.com industry.

"There have been so many unfulfilled promises. So many bad decisions have been made. So many investors have waited so patiently for their investments to pay dividends. So many people are so utterly frustrated and so terribly angry. So many were simply gambling on bad advice and poor timing. Quietly and confidentially, they admit that they are beginning to wonder if they were duped."

Robicheaux says investors, for nearly a decade, have been pouring money into electronic retailing ventures that have yet to turn the corner. Many enterprising electronic commerce gurus ran through the investor markets with colorful pictures of enterprises they guaranteed would bring brick-and-mortar retailers like Sak's, Wal-Mart, and Sears to their knees. "To date, almost all of those gurus have been able to stay ahead of their staggering expense budgets and escalating operating system investments by continuing...