e-commerce | by ron zack

E-business. E-commerce.

E-tailing. E-gad!

This really happened. A painfully large number of last year's "Wheel of Fortune" contestants made more money from "e" as in "Pat, I'd like to buy a Vowel" than from Jeff Bezos' company, the "e" giant Amazon.com which actually lost $350 million in 1999. But Bezos himself did at least get a nice consolation prize - Time's Person of the Year! Not bad.

You're probably thinking, "Hey, I could do that - lose $350 million!" But Bezos' experience is a grotesque twist on the old joke: What's the best way to make $1 million? First, get $5 million. You see, Bezos had to convince investors to give him a lot more than $350 million in order for him to have it to lose. So, if you're not that persuasive or you're simply awful at word puzzles, maybe you'd better think hard about e-commerce. As evidenced above, the "e" world is somewhat stupefying. The lines of delineation are fuzzy but generally, e-business is about business-to-business interaction.

E-commerce is about retail transactions. Obviously, e-business has an element of transaction, too. In fact, with businesses buying from one another to the tune of more than $100 billion per year, the corporate side currently dwarfs consumer retail "e" sales, which ring up only about $15 billion annually. But that's today. And that's probably why Time picked Bezos despite Amazon's numbers. The untapped potential in consumer e-commerce can make Amazon's $350 million in hyperspace red link appear like Mars (the Red Planet) in real space - pretty infinitesimal in the grand scheme of things.

One question: do those who've invested heavily in e-commerce for their business ever feel like they've done enough? Hardly ever. They tend to worry that somebody has technology that's newer and better than theirs.

Relax. If Time's Person of the Year can lose $350 million, the rest of us ought not to worry about being left behind. There are, however, some fundamentals worth revisiting. n Understand the culture, both the general "e" culture and the culture of the buying public. E-commerce is here. Even ATMs count. And the percentage of American homes now "wired" is growing at an astonishing rate. Most businesses have a responsibility to explore how e-commerce might fit with their business plans. Stephen King already has published a book exclusively on the web. More and more travelers routinely book and pay for airline travel without ever speaking to a person.

• Use the technology. Too many amateur videographers grab the camera, line the family up in front of the Christmas tree, and then yell "Action!" So the kids wave, and maybe Junior puts little devil horns behind his sister's head. Companies that merely shift their printed brochure to a screen do much the same - they fail to maximize the "sizzle" that's web-available. Woe be to the static website. Pick a clock radio off a shelf and, if you don't like it, you move down the aisle a few feet to try another, but at least you stay in the store. Web shoppers don't, or at least don't have to. They're a "click" away from moving on.

• Use what is already known about the business. Not just about e-technology, but about the products, the services, and the customers. Customers likely already have established buying patterns that can be maximized with e-commerce applications.

• Don't forget the "back-end" - The real magic of e-commerce for businesses primarily in what happens when a customer's ready to transact. Not only must an e-commerce site be an easy portal into a business, but the savvy business maintains a site that makes actual shopping and buying easy, too.

• And finally, unless a business is an Internet company per se, it should consult with outside firms for help in creating and managing the e-commerce process stem-to-stern. If you are going to do it, do it right.

Ron Zack is CEO of Computer Source, Inc. Contact him at 913.438.8877 or rzack@csourcekc.com.