assigned a unique number - as a book for consumer use. Pantone is trying to persuade online retailers to include a Pantone color number with the merchandise description so that online shoppers can look it up in the Pantone book (which retails for about $19.95). The end result, of course, would be that everyone involved in the online transaction is literally on the same page.
Herbert believes that digitized color can be used to sell products on the Web, and to that end, his company developed an application that lets Web site users shop by specific Pantone color. (The-shop-by-color application is, at this point, only available to consumers on the home décor site MyMaison.com.) The idea is that a shopper seeking a certain shade of gold napkins to perfectly match a tablecloth might also be tempted to purchase a vase in the same color or a complementary color.
But as with color-correction applications, it's still too soon to tell what effect Pantone's online technology will have on online sales. "It's going to take some time," Herbert says. "But we're in this for the long haul."
