Not just books, music and streaming films but mid- and high-end hard goods.
As hard goods become commoditised, companies turn to services to add value.
ECONOMIST: In one form or another, electronic commerce is here to stay
China is now disrupting global commodities markets, influencing the price of gold, and affecting pricing for many soft and hard goods producers around the world.
FORBES: Investing In China Is Fraught With Business Landmines
Countries like India, Bangladesh and Indonesia, are taking a growing share of the export market for textiles, footwear and many hard goods, but China is still the leader in each of those categories.
FORBES: China's Untapped Potential Far Outweighs Its Competitors
The company already has a standalone product-search service that specializes in "hard" goods such as electronics and draws traffic from the main search engine.
Meanwhile, trading up is the name of the game for hard-line goods like computers, television sets and appliances, according to industry consultant Levin.
And, the only reason you or I accept the dollar in exchange for our hard work or goods is because we trust that someone else will accept it in turn.
FORBES: Obama's Policies Make China Stronger And The U.S. Weaker
Agricultural exports that used to be the engine of the economy have shriveled, and foreign currency to import goods is hard to come by.
But according to a number of studies, roughly half of East Asia's exports to China are components, such as semiconductors and hard drives, for goods that are ultimately exported elsewhere.
Chinese goods were hard to find.
FORBES: Move Over, Michigan, China Is The World's Next Rust Belt
The TV generation's financial independence is not lost on hard-selling consumer-goods manufacturers.
Paramount tried to release the little-seen Jeremy Piven film The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard only 12 weeks after it debuted in theaters.
Some consumer-behavior experts say it is likely the merchants who find it easiest to adopt checkout fees will be specialists and boutiques offering hard-to-find goods or services.
He implemented universal health and education programmes, but rising prices and shortages of basic goods meant life remained hard for some.
As David Harding of Bain, a consultancy, points out, consumer-goods firms find it hard to boost growth by letting go of older, slower-growing brands.
The struggles of these companies and their brands are the fallout of the growth of private-label goods and the rise of hard discounters like Germany's Aldi and Lidl chains.
Sites like HauteLook, MYHABIT, Rue La La, yoox, Gilt, Ideeli, and Bluefly, just to name a few, offer special deals on fashion goods that shoppers have a hard time ignoring.
FORBES: Expect More Retail Promotions In 2013, Thanks To The Internet
The result of this, suggests Lord Layard, is that developed societies may tend to work too hard in order to consume more material goods, and so consume too little leisure.
Mention Shakers and most people think of the simple dignity of their furniture and architecture, or perhaps their music, or the rigour of their communal lives, which demands celibacy, simplicity, hard work and a common sharing of goods.
The impact of a long-proposed but yet-to-be-implemented national goods-and-sales tax is hard to predict.
The war has swung back and forth across Dinka land, killing off trade and access to essential goods and eroding their capacity to survive hard times.
It's hard to argue with this logic: As electronics goods and mobile phones become more dependent on the internet, then Samsung will be able to take advantage of the trend.
Train production, by contrast, has until recently been largely national, which made it hard for manufacturers to achieve scale or make widely marketable goods.
"It will be hard work for Tengku Razaleigh, but he can deliver the goods, " says Razaleigh associate Rais Yatim.
Hard choices like buying a car or paying for other vital goods vs. purchasing insurance will become much easier to make.
FORBES: Use This Calculator To Find Out Your Insurance Costs Under The New Healthcare Law
And despite all this, a yen touching postwar highs, making it hard for even the most efficient manufacturers to earn a profit on export goods.
FORBES: Japan's Economy May Stink, But Its World-Class Firms Are A Bargain
They would be prohibited from spending the money on "luxury" goods such as Sky TV, cigarettes and alcohol - items which "hard-working families" have to cut back on when money is tight.
Recipients would be prohibited from spending the money on "luxury" goods such as Sky TV, cigarettes and alcohol - items which "hard-working families" have to cut back on when money is tight.
应用推荐