Multimedia Reporting (Kuhr-Musser)

He orders his shoes online. He buys his clothes online He even bought his last car online. George Marakas, KU business professor, says he makes an estimated 75% of his annual purchases on the Internet. If Marakas needs anything, he turns first to the Internet.

“I can’t remember the last time I picked up a phone book,” Marakas said.

Yet even with national online retail sales totaling almost $2 billion per week, some local businesses choose to remain out of the online marketplace.

Third Planet, 2 E. Ninth St., has locations in Lawrence, Wichita and Topeka, but no locations online. Trish Jess, director of operations for Third Planet, said that although the store had a couple of websites in the past, site maintenance became too difficult compared to the relatively low profits generated by their online business.

“We really just didn’t have the time to keep it up to date so that we could do more business,” Jess said.

Online sales are slowly accounting for an increasing percentage of overall business sales.

With hundreds of products in the store, from clothing to bumper stickers, Jess said keeping up with constantly changing merchandise would not be practical for Third Planet.

“We haven’t had a full service retail website because we have too much stuff,” Jess said. “Our stock changes so frequently.”

Jess said that most customers buy products at Third Planet on impulse in the store. Clothes cannot be tried on when ordering online, and after the cost of shipping, items like bumper stickers and body jewelry may not be worth the cost.

“So much of what we sell is touch-and-feel stuff,” Jess said.

Keep these tips in mind when shopping online.

Chris Cardwell, Lawrence senior, works at Third Planet and said people call frequently to order products or ask if the store has a website. However, he does not think that the absence of a website hurts the store’s sales.

“We’re successful without it,” Cardwell said.

Third Planet does not plan to resume e-commerce any time soon.

“For us it’s just not really viable,” Jess said.

Two blocks away on the downtown strip, Bloom Bath & Body, 704 Massachusetts St., also conducts its business in-store rather than online. Bloom manager Lisa Sanders said time was the biggest factor in not yet having a website for the store.

“We just haven’t had time, basically,” Sanders said.

Bloom sells mostly products created especially for the store. The owner, Margot Wells, designs two lines of bath products and a new line of pajamas. She makes the formulas for the bath products and designs the packaging herself.

The two lines, archivebath.com and lollialife.com, have respective websites, while the store does not. The store websites went online quickly when the products were featured on Oprah's Favorite Things show in November 2004.

“When you have four products featured on Oprah’s Favorite Things, you have to have a website,” Sanders said.

Although customers call the Bloom store to order products over the phone, Sanders said she does not think that a store website would significantly increase sales. She says most of Bloom’s customers prefer to shop in-store, but a website may help KU students to continue to shop there after they graduate.

“The only advantage for a website is for customers around the country,” Sanders said.

A survey by Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that 73 percent of Americans go online. However, not everyone takes advantage of the Internet marketplace. Bloom worker Daniel Ellsworth says he does not shop online.

“With sites like eBay, it’s such a hassle,” Ellsworth said. “You have to set up an account. Plus I really just don’t trust people who sell stuff online.”

George Marakas, KU business professor, says that most businesses need some sort of website in order to remain competitive.

“It should be business as usual for a business to have a web presence,” Marakas said.

A web presence does not necessarily mean an online store. Marakas said that businesses need something on the web with basic contact information at the very least.

“At the least, it is certainly an advertising medium,” Marakas said. “The Internet evolved as the Yellow pages. I can’t remember the last time I picked up a phone book.”

Marakas said most businesses without websites need more education on the simplicity of web design and hosting, not persuasion of the significance of e-commerce.

“There’s a lack of understanding at the local level of how to do it – not of the value,” Marakas said. E-commerce is not just for eBay and Amazon. Even a small store in Lawrence like Au Marche, 931 Massachusetts St., can profit from a well designed website.

“Ever since we launched our current web site, we have seen our web sales grow and grow and grow,” Lora Wiley, Au Marche owner, said. “We do know that during the summers people traveling cross-country will make a special stop in Lawrence to visit us because they've visited our web site.”

With the growing success of online sales, Marakas recognizes that in-store shopping will not disappear any time soon. Like Trish Jess said, people still enjoy trying things on and buying items on the spur of the moment.

“Women still look at shopping as a sport,” Marakas said.

Read about the Internet today on Business Week's website.

See Time Magazine's listing of the best websites.