online booksellers

Amazon.com wants you to buy things using your mobile phone, especially if you are all thumbs. On Wednesday, the e-commerce company introduced a new service called TextBuyIt that lets customers with Amazon accounts find and buy products through Amazon's Web site.

Online commerce, initially a boon to brick and mortar booksellers, has now become detrimental to the trade. The online bookselling gold rush has had a crippling influence on the traditional sellers, in many cases forcing them out of business entirely. Here are the hows and whys of it all.