Selling retail products on the Internet is a phenomenon that even Wall Street’s top analysts can’t put their fingers on. Some industries, such as book retailers, have thrived on the ever-expanding information superhighway, while others, such as pet suppliers, have gone belly-up.

So what does this mean to farrier suppliers who want to make their wares readily available via the Web? Are farriers ready to consistently buy supplies through a computer?

While it’s too early in the game to give cut-and-dry answers to the buying patterns of farriers worldwide, there are signs that indicate there may be a place for selling everyday farrier products online.

Infancy Stages

Selling products through the Internet is in its early stages and has been an evolutionary process. Some of the most successful farrier supply companies have only been offering products online for 2 or 3 years.

Many farrier suppliers first launched Web sites as a way to gain exposure for their business as well as to give location and contact information to potential customers. But as more and more folks became computer savvy and home computers became commonplace, farrier supply companies began offering products in a whole new way.

“We’ve offered farrier supplies online for about 2 years. At first, it didn’t prove to be very successful,” says Amy Pieh, vice president of Centaur Forge in Burlington, Wis. “For one thing, there was a security firewall that we had in place that prevented Internet search engines from finding us. But since we joined the…