It may turn out that the biggest effect of online business -to-consumer commerce is not its size, but the way it changes the rules of the retailing game-to the evident perplexity of those who have hitherto played it best.

• 商家面向消费者的在线购物所产生的最大的影响或许并不在于其规模，而是它改变零售业游戏规则的方式--而到现在为止，传统零售业一直是这套游戏规则的最大赢家，他们显然感到困惑。