Measure yourself often
Everybody's dot-com is different. Despite the failures of many companies, there are still considerable benefits to be had from taking the time to properly address retail infrastructure and customer support.
Just how you measure these benefits is up to you, and there are no hard and fast measures of e-commerce success. One good indicator, of course, is whether the online operations are profitable. This was a major problem for many early dot-coms, who found they were losing so much money on shipping and support costs that their losses were increasing as their revenues increased. If you get into this situation, consider taking drastic action to save your skin before the online business descends into irreparability.
Ultimately, the site's effect on your bottom line will determine its value to the business. Yet there are also many intangible benefits that can do good for the operation as a whole. A particularly informative site, for example, can help educate consumers and indirectly generate additional business down the road. You may also consider using customer surveys to assess the penetration of your advertising and cross-selling efforts, since many anonymous Web visitors may well be directed to your retail stores as a result of something they saw online.
Whatever your business goals, go online with an open mind and assume that things will change dramatically-and quite regularly-over time. Instead of expecting the Web to change your business overnight, focus on short-term deliverables and set regular milestones to make sure you're on the right track. And never, ever, stand still-your competitors certainly aren't.
"The dot-com world thought you could take a pure online enterprise and use it to satisfy all the needs of customers, bypass everything we've learned in the business world for the past five decades, and replace all traditional businesses," says Stuart Woodring, vice president of research for emerging Internet economies with analyst firm Forrester Research.
"What we've found is that the opportunity provided to us by the Internet and e-commerce gives us wholly new capabilities. We need to flow these together with all the traditional business rules and processes to create a better, more compelling experience for all the businesses we interact with. By 2004, nobody will be talking about e-business anymore-the 'e' will become invisible and simply part of the business fabric, and all of this will simply become a component of every successful business strategy."
