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ed with information about the car and the best available deals. Sometimes they even have puter printouts identifying the particular vehicle from the dealer’s stock that they want to buy. Half of the 60m consumers in Europe who have an inter connection bought products offline after having investigated prices and details online, according to a study by Forrester, a research consultancy (see chart 1). Different countries have different habits. In Italy and Spain, for instance, people are twice as likely to buy offline as online after researching on the inter. But in Britain and Germany, the two most developed inter markets, the numbers are evenly split. Forrester says that people begin to shop online for simple, predictable products, such as DVDs, and then graduate to more plex items. Usedcar sales are now one of the biggest online growth areas in America. People seem to enjoy shopping on the inter, if high customersatisfaction scores are any guide. Websites are doing ever more and cleverer things to serve and entertain their customers, and seem set to take a much bigger share of people’s overall spending in the future. This has enormous implications for business. A pany that neglects its website may be mitting mercial suicide. A website is increasingly being the gateway to a pany’s brand, products and services—even if the firm does not sell online. A useless website suggests a useless pany, and a rival is only a mouseclick away. But even the coolest website will be lost in cyberspace if people cannot find it, so panies have to ensure that they appear high up in inter search results. For many users, a search site is now their point of entry to the inter. The bestknown search engine has already entered the lexicon: people say they have “Googled” a pany, a product or their plumber. The search business has also developed one of the most effective forms of advertising on the inter. And it is already the best way to reach some consumers: teenagers and young men spend more time online than watching television. All this means that search is turning into the inter’s next big battleground as Google defends itself against challenges from Yahoo! and Microsoft. The other way to get noticed online is to offer goods and services through one of the big sites that already get a lot of traffic. Ebay, Yahoo! and Amazon are being huge trading platforms for other panies. But to take part, a pany’s products have to stand up to intense price petition. People check online prices, pare them with those in their local high street and may well take a peek at what customers in other countries are paying. Even if websites are prevented from shipping their goods abroad, there are plenty of webbased entrepreneurs ready to oblig