The tremendous growth of the Internet has created opportunities for consumers and firms to participate in an online global marketplace. It is conceivable that in the future every person with access to a computer will interact with firms marketing on the Internet. We foresee that advances in electronic commerce will dramatically alter the structure of businesses, especially in the marketing area.

In this study, we extend the literature on marketing channel functions to include the Internet as a new option for selling products/services directly to customers. Important factors that inference the behaviors of online shoppers are identified. A classification scheme is used to categorize products/services selling on the Internet based on characteristics such as tangibility and price from the buyer?s perspective. The classification scheme helps management to understand the difference in user preference over different product categories. A survey of experienced online shoppers was conducted to validate the scheme.