Going Online for Bigger Share of Registry Silver

Here comes the bride, 1990s style, with increasing online access to the list of gifts she and her groom covet.

Christmas 1998 gave many retailers good reason to bring bridal gift registries into the computer age: For the first time, large numbers of women showed they were willing to shop online.

On Tuesday, housewares mecca Williams-Sonoma became the latest brick-and-mortar retailer to bring its registry to the Internet, providing online wish lists complete with descriptions, pictures and suggestions for other gift items.

Last week, Federated Department Stores Inc., which already operates online registries through its Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s sites, said it will buy for an undisclosed price 20% of Los Angeles-based WeddingChannel.com, which aims for one-stop wedding shopping offering couples help in planning, registering and setting up wedding home pages.

And in April, Comcast Corp.’s QVC television shopping channel said it was investing $15 million in the Knot Inc.’s theknot.com, which offers a registry as well as wedding planning and even wedding attire services. JCPenney, Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Dillard’s and a host of specialized Web stores already feature bridal registries on their Web sites.

Analysts say gift registries are particularly well suited to e-commerce. Buyers are less likely to believe they need to personally see or touch items that were selected by the recipients, and they do not shop around for better prices. That means retailers with online registries don’t have to worry that they are just making it easier for potential customers to take their business to a lower-priced competitor.

The e-registries give brides outside of the nation’s biggest cities equal access to list their preferences with the biggest and poshest names in retailing.

“Today we have the Internet, which connects every single corner of this country and every country in the world with some of the finest stores in the United States,” said Kurt Barnard, president of Barnard’s Retail Trend Report. “Everyone can have a part of that.”

What the larger stores bring to the Internet landscape, meanwhile, is an increasing squeeze on both the smaller brick-and-mortar stores and the smaller pioneering online competitors--from local china stores to national discounters--as the big players leverage their big names for an increasing piece of the $10-billion to $17-billion gift registry industry.

“Sleeping giants are waking all over the land here, and so the easy fishing is done,” said Kevin Silverman, an analyst with ABN Amro in Chicago. “What happens to the landscape is what has always happened. The better brand names that have been known for good quality, good service and consistency of product around the nation--people who evoke a sense of trust and comfort when you’re sending goods you’ve never seen to people you love--will do very well.”

Raj Dhaka president and co-founder of WeddingChannel.com, said his site was able to register 30,000 technology-minded couples over the past year. But, he said, linking with a well-known retailer was an important part of his strategy.

“You’ve got two processes: You’ve got to get the bride and the groom, but then you’ve got to communicate to their guests,” Dhaka said. “People who don’t have those high-level [store names], will definitely have a hard road.”

Although Federated already offers online registry services at its Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s Web sites, company executives said the new service will allow them to link registries at all Federated department stores, which also include the Bon Marche, Burdine’s, Lazarus and Rich’s. WeddingChannel, for its part, gets an in with the 300,000 to 400,000 brides and grooms who annually register at Federated as well as various in-store promotions.

Companies with online registries have high hopes for a growing customer base, as today’s giant swell of teenagers becomes tomorrow’s enormous group of young adults, ready to plunk down billions of dollars for everything from reception halls to rented tuxedos.

Not all smaller retail stores are worried.

Gearys of Beverly Hills, one of the oldest and more exclusive tabletop stores in the Los Angeles area, has made a niche for itself by offering more specialized bridal services and higher-end merchandise unavailable elsewhere--an advantage staked out by smaller retailers for as long as there has been bigger retailers.

“Our customer is looking for things they can’t find at department stores,” said Tom Blumenthal, Gearys senior vice president and general manager, who added that the store is in the process of creating its own Web site. “Because we’re such a specialized registry, it doesn’t really affect us.”