Checking Out The Corner Cyberstore

You buy books, plan travel, or invest in stocks online. But you don't purchase your groceries over the Net, right? That makes you a typical Web-surfing consumer. A mere 0.1% of groceries and health-and-beauty items are bought online in the U.S., vs. 4% of airline tickets and books and 9% of software, says New York's Jupiter Communications, which tracks E-business.

Maybe not for long. In recent months, at least four cyberdrugstores have opened their doors. Peapod, the closest thing to a national online grocery service, has moved into Long Island, N.Y., its eighth metropolitan area. Borders Books co-founder Louis Borders will soon launch a rival to Peapod starting in Northern California, while Amazon. com is in talks to join the grocery game as well.