E-commerce

Jul 10th 2006
From Economist.com
When the technology bubble burst in 2000, the crazy valuations for online companies vanished with it, and many e-tailers folded or were gobbled up by bigger, old-economy fish. Yet after some lean years the survivors are looking forward to a bright future. The internet has profoundly changed consumer behaviour and online retail sales and advertising revenues are rising fast. Internet-based auctions have been a runaway success and it seems most travel bookings will move online within the decade. After a discouraging start, online entertainment also seems to have got its act together. The one big disappointment has been business-to-business exchanges, which have been slow to take off. Yet there have also been surprises: searching for profit, epitomised by Google, has become a highly competitive industry. And many of the retailers who are poised to do best are the old-economy “big box” stores, which the internet was supposed to clobber. As e-commerce celebrated its tenth birthday in 2005, there were some clear lessons on what makes an e-business succeed.