DISTRIBUTORS IN TRANSITION -- E-enabled Dealers

It's just this kind of forward thinking that dealers must adopt, agrees DuRoss. While clients may not be currently clamoring to purchase products online or even to gather data online, it will come. E-

commerce is not going away, he states, and dealers must begin to plan for the future.

Still, some dealers are just not answering that call, contends FitzPatrick. "Many dealers spent last year investigating and studying e-commerce. They approached it skeptically and carefully because of the exaggerated claims by some Internet companies and pundits.