The future of eCommerce

[misteroriginal]

HTTP is stateless and anonymous. Why should you care? Because when a customer shops your store, whether eBay or ZenCart, each click within the site carries a price tag. The client has to tell the server, basically, "Hi. I'm Joe Blow. I'd like to see that lovely dress on the other page." This creates a time lag while the server becomes re-acquainted with Joe Blow and decides if he is making a valid request. After that, it completely forgets all about him.

This is the overwhelmingly dominant model right now, but you can visit eBay for a concrete example.
www.ebay.com

The future is to do it through Web Applications. These more closely resemble the typical computer application most everybody is familiar with. There may be a longer download time when the customer visits your store, but there is almost no price for mouse-clicking once they're inside. After the initial visit, some stuff is stored on your computer so the next visit will be even more pleasant. This is part of the excitement about AJAX and Flash. People who claim to "hate" Flash are talking about specific animation applications, and really don't hate Flash in general.

Abercrombie & Fitch is a perfect example of the much more intense competition you and your little ZenCart or whatever cart store will be facing. Enjoy!
www.abercrombie.com

Or to sneak you straight inside:
http://www.abercrombie.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&catalogId=10901&parentCategoryId=12203&childCatgroupId=12203&categoryId=12270&productId=1&langId=-1

[vitalfinds]

I like the "more styles" thing, but that black & white photo gallery stuff seems pretty useless.

I'm curious as to what allows this to take place (actual countdowns of auctions ending)  www.bidz.com

[misteroriginal]

Looks like good old Flash maintaining state. Because it "knows" you, it can keep updating the info.

Thanks, Vital! That's a great example of things we argued about before, i.e., Flash being useful beyond the stersotypical multimegabyte obnoxious animation download.

[stardust]

but that black & white photo gallery stuff seems pretty useless.

Are you kidding?    That first photo that slams the viewer is a killer!  *pant pant*   
Perhaps they're using the photos to elicit buying phermones because the clothes are so horribly ugly... 

It's a very intriguing site... interesting layout.

I've admired and wondered about the bidz.com site for several years.  It think it's the way ALL auctions should be run.  30 second add-ons until the bidding stops.  If I were running a successful auction site, that's the way it would be.

[misteroriginal]

This is a cool sister-site, also owned by Abercrombie & Fitch. I think it's a little different, but I didn't take time to figure out what they're up to.
http://www.hollisterco.com/hol/homepage.html