ower has shifted from the suppliers to the customers. Why?

The growing proliferation of products and competitors means that there is not a shortage of products, there is a shortage of customers. This makes the customer king. The customer has more choice than ever before, and also more information, thanks to the Internet. The customer can click on "shopping bots" such as buy.com or mysimon.com that show the prices charged by different online merchants for the same item. Prices can vary as much as 20 percent. The consumer is only a click away from checking different suppliers, which is not the case when doing store shopping. Consumers can also chat with owners or users of the product, which means that word of mouth will grow more important in influencing consumer choice.... more