EUROPEAN VIEW

Three articles and a vacation in Provence are enough to confront me once again with the facts: a whole lot of resellers don't understand the full implications of the internet.

The articles in Time Magazine ('Click till you drop', 3 August), the PC Europa newsletter ('Dealers foxed by the internet', 24 July), and the report in PC Dealer on the first Cyber Channels conference ('E-commerce set to change the face of IT', 22 July) were all about the use of the internet as an instrument for e-commerce.

Both Time and the report in PC Dealer pointed unanimously in one direction: e-commerce is more than a passing phase. It will become a new way of doing business and is poised to set the traditional dealer channel completely on its head. But the research PC Europa did with European dealers revealed entirely different kinds of language, while fear, hesitation and contempt was almost universal.

Although, if I am reading this correctly, (for example, 'The internet is not nearly as powerful as dropping a catalogue on someone's desk' and, 'In the consumer market you can do a lot with the internet, but not in the business-to-business area'), I think it is more a case of ignorance about the way the internet can be used than a complete refusal to use the technology come what may. Because as far as this is concerned, everyone seems to be agreed - anyone not involved with the internet in one way or another is way behind the times.

Without expressing an opinion on the accuracy of any of these statements from the different articles, here is my holiday story.

For a number of years I have been going faithfully to Provence with my family every year. We first of all choose which region of Provence we would like to explore and then we find a village to stay in.

This year we stayed first with a farming family close to the region of St. Paul-en-foret and then with an adventurer in the vicinity of Bras.

I knew both of them had an internet connection because I had found photos of their houses on the Net.

But I was surprised to discover that both regarded the internet as their marketing instrument of the future. Both had already placed their house and lodging arrangements on the Web, both had an email connection and both intended to register themselves on a whole set of other tourist Websites this year.

'The internet means we can outdo the largest hotels,' they told me. Indeed, on the Net, all companies are the same size. They have not yet come to the idea of e-commerce (ie renting a room using an electronic form and paying by electronic means). This has nothing to do with any disbelief in it, as much as with the habit of dealing with all financial matters in cash. We always pay our lodging costs in cash, for example. There is to be no desertion of this habit for the time being - both even refuse to accept Visa.

No fear in Provence

Are they technically aware of how it all works? Don't worry on that score, albeit it's not the bits and bytes that interest them the most. But they do calculate on a daily basis whether or not they are getting sufficient value for money.

The farmer told me, for instance, that one day he discovered his ISP had taken the photographs of his house off the server. He was told it was a technical error, but did not believe it for an instant. 'Saving space on the server, which is too small anyway, that was the real reason and that's not what I'm paying for,' he points out.

Since then he has been checking every day to see if everything is still on the page and reads his 30 daily emails at the same time. Not bad for a simple workman in a far-flung village in Provence. Most of the emails are requests for information or messages from past visitors wishing to be remembered to him.

Now the conclusion from the Provence story. First of all e-commerce is only one way of using the internet. Low-cost marketing (lead-generation), customer connection (a simple email to your customers), providing product information and so on, are other and equally worthwhile ways of using it.

Secondly, never underestimate the internet revolution, just as you can never underestimate the people who use it. Thirdly, anyone setting out down the e-commerce path needs to realise that it's still in the throes of development. On the technical side of things, a lot of improvements are still needed, but people's mentality also needs to change and that takes a long time.

And, most importantly, e-commerce does not replace traditional sales channels but supplements them - it serves a different target group. As well as this, there is the fact that vendors are quick to note whether their channel partners are rushing to catch the new train and the kind of enthusiasm they show.

Those who are not 100 per cent behind the internet must not complain that vendors who promote their own Websites, either for providing information to customers or selling their products, are heading towards channel conflict.

The resellers themselves in this case will be the ones seeking the conflict.

The likelihood that vendors will both seek and find new channel partners seems inevitable.

Jan Pote is editor of PC Dealer, Belgium.