Friday, July 21, 2006 Michael Adams; Ideas and Strategies for Business Emerald Business Services, LLC P.O. Box 1875 Ramona, CA 92065 (619)985-0799

Why E-commerce Projects Fail and What to do About it The last five years have seen an explosion of online sales activity with growth rates in almost all verticals in the [1]fourteen to twenty percent range. However, [2]ninety percent of all online businesses fail. This is the same percentage given for brick and mortar failures, even though many if not most of these failures are successful brick and mortar initiatives undertaken to build business-to-business, business-to-consumer sales (or an informational) presence on the web. The reasons cited by industry experts fill volumes, and are at the center of much debate. Most of the explanations for why so many online initiatives fail to achieve their objectives are tactical and fail to address the more urgent strategic issues relative to the webs business environment.E-commerce projects eat up vast amounts of internal resources and funding, and most importantly, a failed e-commerce project means your company is losing out on one of the most dynamic and[3]fastest growing sectors in our economy. Your online sales should be a substantial source of revenue. They may never rival your brick and mortar efforts but they can and should be a major source of revenue and brand exposure.E-commerce projects fail because leaders do not have the knowledge and understanding of the online world. Every other argument detailing the many issues related to online business failure come in at a distant second to these basic principles. You must understand the nature of the online world if you hope to be successful online. It is a vastly different landscape where your business strategies must be tailored to its dynamic nature.There are three things your e-commerce initiative must take into account. 1) Brick and mortar businesses are visible for all to see; online your company and products are only as visible as the search engines say you are; 2) In the online world the user/customer dictates what companies will be in there field of view based upon the keywords he or she uses; 3) The World Wide Web levels the playing field, large and small companies have little differentiation. Economies of scale are diminished and do not carry the same weight as they do in brick and mortar.Emerald Business Services, LLC owns and operates an online barbecue smoker and grill store. This store consistently outperforms the manufacturer of the grills, even though they sell the same grills online. The store is operated by one person, was built with limited funds, is only two years old and still outperforms its larger counterparts. Economies of scale just do not always apply.Visibility on the Web Location is still everything, just not physical location. In the physical world retail store location is everything. Studies show that the same is true on the web; it is just that the best locations are on the first page of Google's search results page, (users click on one of the top 10 results without ever moving to another page.) Not just any first page but [4]Google's first page, which represent 80 in the 1st 18months and 90 of respondents reported a "strongly positive" experience from using Google[5] The only investment is in knowledge of the web landscape, SEO skills, and the technical expertise to pull it off.