Shoppers In New York Name Own Price For Grocery Items

Online Shoppers Can Kiss Credit Cards Goodbye

Talking Web Pages Launched By Ecall.com

Expanding its concept to grocery items, shoppers in the New York metro area are now able to name their own price for groceries using Priceline.com’s [NASDAQ: PCLN] WebHouse Club.

The service, which was started on Nov. 1, has teamed up with more than 1,000 grocery stores in the New York City, New Jersey and Connecticut.

"We thought this was the best market to get people to try this service," WebHouse Club spokesman Kevin Goldman said. "If it passes in New York, then other people in the country will embrace it," he added but declined to give a timetable for any expansion into other regions.

In its first week of the service, some 15,000 people used it to buy more than 188,000 items with an average savings per order of $12.

Shoppers go to Priceline.com’s Web site (http://www.priceline.com) and click on the WebHouse Club icon. From there they find a store near them and search through 140 categories with more than 600 national brands.

Once they find the item they’re looking for, the shoppers enter the price they want to pay and submit it. Within 60 seconds the price submitted will be returned with either an "accept" or "deny."

If the prices are accepted, the shopper prepays for the goods using a credit card. They then go to the store and find the items they purchased and go to the checkout stand where they swipe their WebHouse Club card. If they want to buy other items that they didn’t purchase online, they must keep it separate.

If the price at the market happens to be lower than the price they paid for the item online, the shopper will be credited.

"You always pay the lowest price," Goldman said.

Priceline.com lets shoppers name their own price for items such as plane tickets, hotel rooms and even cars. This is believed to be the first such service involving grocery items.

The stores which are participating in the WebHouse Club include A&P, Key Food, FoodTown, King Kullen, ShopRite, Waldbaum’s, the Food Emporium, Gristede’s, D’Agostino, Grand Union and Pathmark.

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Shopping online could become much easier for people without credit cards under a new Internet automatic teller machine plan developed by Cash Technologies Inc. [NASDAQ:CHNG].

According to Cash Technologies Chairman and CEO Bruce Korman, credit cards inhibit much of the potential in the e-commerce market. "Today nearly half of the US population, and one-fourth of those who qualify, do not have credit cards," he said.

In order to turn these cardless customers into online spenders, Cash Technologies today announced that it has reached agreements with MP3.com, [NASDAQ:MPPP], an online digital music Website, and privately held Sensar Inc., a manufacturer of "iris recognition products," to begin a pilot project using ATM cards to purchase music products at MP3’s Website.

Instead of credit cards, MP3 will use Sensar’s iris recognition devices and Cash Technologies’ EMMA (E-commerce Messaging Management Architecture) transaction processing system.

MP3 customers participating in the pilot project will be able to use their regular bank ATM card to shop securely over the Internet at MP3’s Website. The use of Sensar’s iris camera attached to the customer’s PC will eliminate the need to send personal ID numbers via the Internet, removing the key stumbling block that has prevented the use of ATM cards on the Internet.

Korman also pointed out another possible advantage that this system has over credit cards, saying that "credit card and password fraud have victimized millions of online shoppers."

MP3 pilot project will begin during the first quarter of 2000. Participating customers will enroll at an iris-enabled ATM supplied by Diebold Inc. Thereafter, when the customer is ready to purchase products from MP3’s Website, a small hand-held camera manufactured by Sensar, which plugs into the customer’s PC, will take a picture of his or her iris and return the encoded information to MP3 over the Internet.

MP3 in turn will pass the information on to Cash Technologies’ EMMA system to authenticate the customer and process the transaction through the ATM networks. An approval is returned by EMMA to MP3 within seconds, and the customer can then receive the requested MP3 product in the usual way. According to Cash Technologies, as far as the customer is concerned, the process is virtually as fast and as simple as using an ATM.

MP3 is particularly pleased with the pilot project’s potential, since, according to MP3.com President Robin Richards, "Credit card penetration is particularly low amongst the teenage population despite their tremendous buying power."

Sensar anticipates that eventually the inexpensive hand-held cameras, which also can double as "Web cams" or video conferencing cameras, could be distributed by banks, e-commerce providers, online securities trading firms and even built into computer monitors.

Korman said that initially, Cash Technologies would pay for the cost of the cameras attached to the individual PCs. In the future, he expects that the cameras would be available at virtually no charge, the cost born by online merchants who want to reduce credit card fraud at their sites. Korman also said that if the cameras were not made available for free, he expects the retail cost of the camera to be below $100 when manufactured in quantity.

Information about Cash Technologies is available at http://www.cashtechnologies.com.

Sensar Inc. is located at http://www.sensar.com.

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First came graphics, then animation, and now voices will be added to Web pages thanks to eCall.com, part of the California-based idealab! Group of Internet companies.

It’s all part of the company’s BeeCall Service which allows individual and merchant Web page owners to personalize their Website.

It’s a novel idea that’s sure to appeal to individuals but, according to Lawrence Jacobs of ecall.com, the major users of the service, and any future enhancements, will be online merchants. E-retailers will be able to leave a message on their Website, and consumers can leave messages back; thereby enhancing the feeling of human interaction.

Jacobs said that the BeeCall Service works by embedding a "Talk To Me" icon on the Web page. Visitors click on the icon, hear a greeting from the Web page owner, and can then leave a message for the owner in return. eCall.com, which manages the back-end of the system, forwards these reply messages on the site owner who can then decide to make a direct, more personal response.

According to eCall.com, BeeLink is completely unique in allowing Web page visitors to leave voice messages on any BeeLink-enabled page.

At the present time, BeeLink is free to both individuals and e-merchants. However, Jacobs added that there will be future enhancements to the system which he expects to be available within the next three months. There will be a charge for anyone wanting to use these enhancements.

The service is being promoted as a means for merchants to establish a dialog with their customers, particularly about sales and customer support matters.

Also, since BeeLink Services send voice over the Internet, consumers with one telephone line are now able to talk to their e-merchant without having to log off of their computers.

According to eCall.com, merchants will benefit from this new technology by being able to provide more personalized service to their customers. This, in turn, is expected to reduce the high drop-off rate of customers who need to ask a question before making an online purchase.

Ease of set-up is also being touted as a feature of the new service. Individuals and merchants need to embed just a single line of HTML in their pages to become operational. The software can be downloaded and installed in less than a minute, and will support any number of messages that have a length of five minutes or less.

More information is available on the Web, at http://www.eCall.com.

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Any consumer who likes Web pages overrun with advertising, will love the new treat e-marketers have in store for them. Privately held AudioBase, Inc., which develops audio-rich advertising for Web sites and online advertising, has announced that two internet e-mail marketing firms, Digital Impact, Inc., and Post Communications, will begin enhancing their e-mail programs using new AudioBase technology.

This new technology lets e-mail salesmen send audio to any consumer capable of receiving HTML e-mail. And, the recipient doesn’t need to download any software or special browser plug-ins to hear the message. The AudioBase Audio Delivery System (ADS) places a self- executing Java applet inside the audio attachment so that, according to AudioBase, every desktop that receives the e-mail can instantly hear the "enticing tones of the sponsor’s message."

The value of an e-mail message would be "enhanced," according to Mary Long, vice president of account services at Post Communications. "Our experience," said Long, "shows that increased value and relevance lead to substantially increased and sustained response rates."

Amy Bonetti, a spokesperson for AudioBase, said that companies are lining up to acquire the new technology, feeling, as does AudioBase, that adding audio components to e-mail, banner ads, or Web sites creates an emotional response among consumers that advertisers associate with higher click-through rates and increased brand affinity.

Previously, the complicated implementation and sluggish response of conventional plug-ins discouraged advertisers from widespread use of audio on the Internet. The AudioBase Java player, using less than 7KB of code, is designed to be delivered and playable immediately without the download-set-up-and-wait of plug-in devices. No authoring tools or server hardware are required to take advantage of audio-enabled advertising campaigns.

Bonetti also remarked that the music business "will love" the new technology.

Post Communications, one of the first two e-marketers to sign up for the new audio technology engages in periodic e-mail campaigns, while Digital Impact, Inc. sends out more than 28 million e-mail messages a month on behalf of its 50 clients.

AudioBase expects to promote their new technology to ad agencies, banner distribution companies, and portals. Their Web site can be found at http://www.audiobase.com.

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