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dfsJUNE 17, 2002 ( COMPUTERWORLD ) - They are mostly gone now, those early online retailers. They believed profits didn't matter. They saw advanced technology as the silver bullet. And their business plans ran to just six words: "Build it, and they will come."
Now, the dot-com survivors say, there's a new focus on basics, such as how to attract customers to a site once it's been built and how to make them happy there. There's a big push to integrate Web sites with back-end systems and brick-and-mortar retail operations. And, yes, there's still a drive toward the latest technologies, such as wireless, 3-D and Web site personalization.
"The first use of a new technology is always imitation of the old," says Michael Shamos, co-director of the Institute for eCommerce at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. "So what we see in e-tailing is the first thing you do with your Web site is replicate your catalog."
Although understandable, that's a huge mistake because an online catalog ...