A leading company in the online shopping arena is Online Interactive, Inc. (Seattle, WA), which operates stores on all the major commercial online services- America Online, Inc. (AOL), CompuServe, Prodigy and The Microsoft Network (MSN) -- as well as several sites on the Internet.

The company launched its Free Offer Store on Prodigy (jump to: Free Offer Store) in December 1994, and its Free Shop Online on AOL (keyword: Free Shop) in June 1995, each of which lists a variety of free offers for consumer products. August 1995 saw the Free Shop Online added to MSN (Go to: Free Shop), as well as the first at Once Software store on MSN (Go to: at once).

The At Once Software store, which offers a variety of software products that can be downloaded, was added to AOL for mail order only in October 1995, with downloadable titles added in May 1996 (keyword: at once). In June 1996, at Once Software stores were launched through CompuServe (http://www.compuserve.atoncesoftware.com) and at a separate Internet site (http://www.atoncesoftware.com).

In September, Online Interactive's first niche software store was launched, the at Once Web Tools store (http://www.webtools.atonce.com), which offers downloadable content authoring tools and ActiveX Controls, as well as free demonstrations, industry news, product reviews, and beta testing opportunities for software developers.

The at Once Software stores aim to provide a range of software titles that all can be downloaded. Although the number of products offered at each store varies, a total of 1600 titles have been licensed from 115 publishers, according to Robert Nachbar, public relations coordinator for Online Interactive.

About 70 to 80 percent of these are not offered in retail stores such as Egghead, Nachbar said, which the company plans will be the model. "A lot of products at Once offers will never make it to shrink wrap," he asserted, because they might be low price points, or small programs or specialized programs, the types that would have to be bundled with other programs for retail sale in order to get any shelf space.

The company sees the online stores as offering a broader choice to consumers, with the convenience of 24-hour shopping from their desktops. And, the electronic channel eliminates the issue of time-to-market for publishers.

Nachbar reported that although some publishers still have concerns about downloading, new titles are being licensed very quickly, with about five per week being added. Attractive to publishers is the fact that 400,000 users visit Online Interactive's various shopping sites each month.

Despite storage and transmission issues, and the fact that consumers may find it "scary" to buy an intangible product, he sees the market moving inevitably to downloading. "People are becoming educated, and realize that the box is a waste. Here we can even do away with the disc." But, he noted again, the company is not concentrating on the larger, commodity-type software programs.

The company will eventually drop its mail order catalog from AOL in favor of direct digital delivery, Nachbar told T/DB. Orders for the 6500 titles available from that catalog are currently being fulfilled by Ingram Micro, shipped to the customers.

Nachbar said he does not expect pricing to drop significantly with the advent of digital distribution, even though some costs will be eliminated from the traditional production process, because of continued price pressure on publishers to remain competitive.

The company advertises its online stores, and uses online promotion with links from other sites. It has also created Club at Once, encouraging visitors to join free to receive information about products and special offers.