Thursday, May 17, 2001

ShopGuideNews
Online Cigarette Sales are Smokin' A research briefing from Forrester warns that much of the online tobacco purchases are coming from kids - but not for long.

In the days before the Internet, teenagers looking to buy cigarettes often had to talk an older friend into purchasing them or attempt to bluff their way past a cashier intent on verifying their age. Now, teenagers can point and click their way to a nicotine fix, often without verifying their age, even though tobacco sales to minors are as illegal online as they are in the real world.

Much of the Internet cigarette market is shrouded in vagueness. Many of the sites are run from Indian reservations, which are free to set their own retail regulations, but some are not. Analysts say they have no idea of the size of the total market or even what the biggest companies are. "You get the feeling many of these are fly-by-night," said Preston Dodd, an analyst with Jupiter Communications, a research firm specializing in Internet commerce.
http://www.shopguide.com/news/article_report1_05-16-01.asp

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