A recent article of the New York Times (free online registration) – Choice trumps price on Internet – points out that the real added value of Internet for the consumers is not only, as expected, a lower price (average of 6 to 16%), but more a question of selection. In this field, selection means a bigger amount of product choices. For example, Wal-mart offers online 6 times more products than its biggest “real” store (!).

This paper is based on a study from Erik Brynjolfsson of the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He is, among other things, Director of the MIT Center for eBusiness. I must say, I like very much the slogan of the Center for eBusiness: “eBusiness is Business”. One of the logo from the eCenter, the unit I’m responsible for by the Helvetia Patria Group, looks like this:

About the same vision :-)