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Technology

The E-Commerce Dream Turns Dark

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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UnderFor years, e-commerce was the bright corner of the retail business. Easier to do comparison shopping. No crowds. Free shipping.

This year, online retail is looking a great deal like the mall. Comscore has already cataloged the flattening of e-commerce sales this year compared to last, but the trends of buying online are looking more like what people do when they walk though stores.

Comscore shows onlne sales off 1% from November 1 thought December 19.

Video games are doing well online as they are in stores. Books are going well through both channels. That makes sense. Books are cheap.

E-commerce office supplies are off 19%. Numbers from Staples and Office Depot stores don’t look that bad. Ditto jewelry and watches.

The salad days of online retail are over.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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