By John Rogers
America Online is set to unveil in the next two weeks an e- commerce tool which is designed to boost consumer shopping on its network by making online purchases quicker and easier. The new service, called Quick Checkout, will allow AOL members to store personal information such as shipping addresses and credit card numbers in a sort of electronic wallet, which can then provide the relevant information more or less instantly when making a purchase. Quick Checkout was first referred to in any sort of detail earlier this month at the Internet World show in New York, but details have been slow to emerge. On a conference call with analysts Tuesday to discuss the company’s first quarter results, an AOL executive said the service would be available in about two weeks’ time. The technology, which is proprietary, sounds similar to the InstaBuy one-click shopping service offered by CyberCash Inc. AOL said that its service, however, will be more or less a closed shop as it can only be used for purchases from companies it has partnerships with. It’s not clear whether that will change eventually, allowing for the service to be open for shopping on any web site that chooses to support it. It’s also unclear whether AOL will try to license the technology to others, something CyberCash has already done – having reached deals with First USA, Taxi Interactive, Impulse Buy Network, Intershop, Netcentives and Ordertrust. CyberCash doesn’t think so. An executive at the company said he doesn’t see AOL as a competitor and reckons that AOL’s technology is designed for a limited number of merchants in a proprietary space – while InstaBuy, on the other hand, is a broadly-deployable open solution. The executive hinted at the possibility of CyberCash and AOL working together on integrating their respective technologies, but hastened to add that no such project is in the works. AOL would not divulge any further information on Quick Checkout pending its official announcement. Not surprisingly, the launch of the new feature is being timed to coincide with the advent of the holiday shopping season. The company has stated publicly that it believes online shopping is still too difficult for mass acceptance and Quick Checkout is one way of removing some of the obstacles. The reward for AOL could be huge if it succeeds in motivating its 13 million subscribers to do more online shopping.
