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138 Lubbe and Pather
jections, inexperienced management, underestimating the costs of establishing a
national brand and a lack of customer-centered focus.
Wilder (1998) noted that web commerce is changing the way a lot of
organizations do business, but that it is not everything that has been hoped for. The
e-commerce concept had been hyped and valuations of these company’s shares
had been high – all because of exaggeration and oversimplification of the real issues.
Wilder (1998) provides a succinct list of e-commerce myths. The first misconception,
highlighted by Wilder (1998), is that everybody thinks that it is easy (a.k.a.,
the barriers have never been lower). It is easy to put up a web site, but add words
such as effective, scalable, successful, and it gets a lot harder. Web infrastructure
could also be a risk for older organizations. The second myth is that it is cheap.
Perhaps e-commerce is cheap when compared with a full-blown enterprise
resource planning implementation. The third myth is that everybody is doing it.
Wilder (1998) argues that there are successful companies on the sideline of ecommerce
that include chains Best Buy and Fry’s Electronics.
The fourth myth highlighted by Wilder (1998) is that it is lucrative. However,
there are still several examples of businesses that do better at traditional retailing,
e.g., The Burlington Coat Factory has a lower sale output through its Internet
presence compared to the output from its 250 stores. The next myth is that the Web
levels the playing field (a.k.a., startups can instantly compete on the same footing
as long-established companies). Wilder argues that companies that want to be
successful at web commerce need the marketing clout, brand identity, and scale to
do back-end fulfillment and customer service – and the capital. This could be a
possible reason why big-physical-world competitors had bought many start-ups.
Some interesting lessons came from an article in Business Inc. (2001) on the
100 dumbest moments in e-commerce history. They discussed the demise of firms
such as Boo.Com, Beyond.com, etc. They also noted that Internet companies
make thousands of mistakes every week. It was argued that adopters of ecommerce
enterprises do not learn from these mistakes. Many of these organizations
did not startup addressing the correct market or they incorrectly spent the
money that was invested in them.
Auger and Gallaugher (1997) comment specifically on the problems faced by
small businesses: difficulty monitoring the site use; security concerns; analyzing and
promoting the site; and lack of access to expertise.
Being a player in the e-commerce domain means that the organization must
become more responsive. It should have an agility in responding to environmental
forces, which play themselves out much quicker than in brick and mortar setups.
ITQuadrant (2001) refers to being able to execute e-commerce strategies rapidly.
Organizations must be able to respond quickly to market changes, emerging
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