Spring has sprung -- sort of. In the Northeast, spring is just a muddy mess between winter and summer, but I saw actual flowers in Portland, Oregon, last week (as a reminder for New Englanders, flowers are those lovely seed-bearing plants that emerge from yellowed patches of grass in June). As we enter this season of rebirth, I thought it would be fitting to pontificate on the rebirth of eCommerce, or "phase two" as I've been calling it: Sales have matured, retailers have turned the profitability corner, and the overall market is re-energized, albeit around fairly tactical issues. It started last year and rolled right through to 2005 with my phone ringing with unusual persistence. Besides my mother, who's been lighting up the phone?

• Retailers seeking new commerce platforms. After years of small site tweaks, retailers are ready to invest for future growth: They've outgrown whatever eCommerce solution they threw at the threat of Amazon.com and eToys (insert laugh track here), or they're launching entirely new endeavors now that they've proven online selling works, like Macy's thisit.com or IAC/InterActiveCorp's Gifts.com sites. Luckily, retailers have better options for outsourcers and licensed solutions in phase two: Investment in new vendors and shakeout among the existing ones have left a solid landscape of providers. On the outsourced side, GSI Commerce has been on fire -- note how few new platform customers Amazon has signed on -- and new hosted vendors DemandWare and Venda provide midsize retailers with options to get best-in-class functionality. On the licensed side, stay tuned: We're in the process of an in-depth Forrester Wave evaluation of the big six of eCommerce -- ATG, BroadVision, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP.

• "New" shopping engines jumping on the bandwagon. Somebody wake me . . . I'm back in 1998, and it's freaking me out. Way too many companies try to capitalize on the hot combo of search and online retail. A slew of companies like Cairo and ShopLocal (powered by CrossMedia Services) are trying to crack the "research online, buy offline" nut. But does anyone remember StoreRunner? Nothing has changed since then: Most retailers still don't have their in-store inventory available online, and small merchants don't have the infrastructure or resources to do it, either. The sites then get reduced to a mega-search of circulars -- something that established players Shopping.com or Shopzilla can do just as easily. On that same note, the mySimon founders launched Become.com, a product and buying content search engine, in beta this past month. Smart people, interesting technology, but again, don't we already have shopping engines that have spent years developing product taxonomies and retail data feeds? This isn't an easy business to enter into at this stage of the game, and it's overcrowded as it is.

• Manufacturers lifting their heads out of the sand. Still conflicted over channel conflict, manufacturers look at the demand from consumers in the form of traffic and actual requests and realize they have to have some form of sales site: 75% of Web buyers have made a purchase at a manufacturer site. Although retailers fear it, my bet is that a rising tide will float all boats. Manufacturers will invest in better buying content and tools that will create more educated shoppers, which will in turn increase online sales at retail partner sites. Ultimately, more sales will go to the retailers, which can offer promotions like free shipping and also larger, multibrand assortment. Interestingly, manufacturer direct sales fuel another trend in eCommerce phase two, data brokerage: Companies like WebCollage broker content syndication from manufacturers to retailers, and ChannelAdvisor helps manufacturers sell on eBay and distribute data feeds to new marketplaces like Overstock.com and Froogle.

Research Referenced In This Issue A Buyer's Guide To Hosted eCommerce Solutions (36145) Getting The Most Out Of Retail Loyalty Programs (36180) Taking eCommerce Sales Abroad (36195) The Comparison-Shopping Shakeout (36175) US eCommerce Overview: 2004 To 2010 (34576) Who Purchases Tickets Online? (36185) Why Some Consumers Don't Buy Online (36698)

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