spikey - 12:15 am on Jan 25, 2006 (gmt 0)

I'm really interested in how manufacturers are dealing with the sale of their products online vs. offline.

There are so many online retailers that are capitalizing on brand recognition to sell products cheaper and more conveniently than their offline counterparts. Anything with brand loyalty is susceptable to this; coffee, ties, tape decks, soap, whatever. The problem is, these stores don't do a lot to build the brand. If they run all the offline retailers out of business then the manufacturers are going to lose a major advertising arena.

I've seen a lot of manufacturers shutting off online sales and/or trying to do it themselves.

It will be interesting to see what happens when ecommerce fully expands into all of these areas.