chapter 1 what is electronic commerce

To achieve these benefits, many companies today engage in electronic commerce for direct marketing, selling, and customer service; online banking and billing; secure distribution of info

Chapter 1: What Is Electronic Commerce?

“It is impossible for ideas to compete in the marketplace if no forum for their presentation is provided or

businesses the potential to increase revenues, lower costs, and establish and strengthen customer and partner relationships To achieve these benefits, many companies today engage in electronic commerce for direct marketing, selling, and customer service; online banking and billing; secure distribution of information; value chain trading; and corporate purchasing

Although the benefits of electronic commerce systems are enticing, developing, deploying, and managing these systems is not always easy In addition to adopting new technology, many companies will need to reengineer their business processes to maximize the benefits of electronic commerce

An electronic commerce strategy should help deliver a technology platform, a portal for online services, and a professional expertise that companies can leverage to adopt new ways of doing business Platforms are the foundation of any computer system An e-commerce platform should be the foundation of technologies and products that enable and support electronic commerce With it, businesses can develop low-cost, high-value commerce systems that are easy to grow as business grows An e-commerce platform’s breadth should also be unmatched, ranging from operating systems to application servers, to an application infrastructure and

development tools, and to a development system

Portals are the crossroads of the Internet, where consumers gather and where businesses can connect with them Companies normally provide customers with a wide range of choices for professional implementation services and tightly integrated software for commerce solutions Independent software vendors (ISVs) have created specialized commerce software components that extend the platform

This chapter details introductory strategies and priorities for electronic commerce, which sets the stage for the rest of the book It also describes how the platform, portal, and partners are critical to solving business problems

in the four most common areas of electronic commerce: direct marketing, selling, and service; value chain integration; corporate purchasing; and financial and information services

E-Commerce: Doing Business on the Internet

Businesses communicate with customers and partners through channels The Internet is one of the newest and, for many purposes, best business communications channels It is fast, reasonably reliable, inexpensive, and universally accessible—it reaches virtually every business and more than 200 million consumers Doing businessonline is electronic commerce, and there are four main areas in which companies conduct business online today:direct marketing, selling, and service; online banking and billing; secure distribution of information; and value chain trading and corporate purchasing

Direct Marketing, Selling, and Service

Today, more Web sites focus on direct marketing, selling, and service than on any other type of electronic commerce Direct selling was the earliest type of electronic commerce, and has proven to be a stepping-stone to more complex commerce operations for many companies Successes such as Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Dell Computer, and the introduction of e-tickets by major airlines, have catalyzed the growth of this segment, proving the reach and customer acceptance of the Internet Across consumer-targeted commerce sites, there areseveral keys to success:

 Marketing that creates site visibility and demand, targets customer segments with personalized offers, and generates qualified sales leads through observation and analysis of customer behavior

 Sales-enhancing site design that allows personalized content and adaptive selling processes that do more than just list catalog items

 Integrated sales-processing capabilities that provide secure credit card authorization and payment, automated tax calculation, flexible fulfillment, and tight integration with existing backend systems, such

as inventory, billing, and distribution

 Automated customer service features that generate responsive feedback to consumer inquiries, captureand track information about consumer requests, and automatically provide customized services based

on personal needs and interests [3]

 This business-to-consumer (B2C) electronic commerce increases revenue by reaching the right customers more often Targeted and automated up-selling and cross-selling are the new fundamentals

of online retailing Sites that most frequently provide the best and most appropriate products and services are rewarded with stronger customer relationships, resulting in improved loyalty and increased value

Financial and Information Services

A broad range of financial and information services are performed over the Internet today, and sites that offer them are enjoying rapid growth These sites are popular because they help consumers, businesses of all sizes, and financial institutions distribute some of their most important information over the Internet with greater convenience and richness than is available using other channels For example, you have:

 Online banking

 Online billing

 Secure information distribution

Secure Information Distribution

To many businesses, information is their most valuable asset Although the Internet can enable businesses to reach huge new markets for that information, businesses must also safeguard that information to protect their assets Digital Rights Management provides protection for intellectual and information property, and is a key technology for secure information distribution

Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO)

The Internet also offers tremendous time and cost savings for corporate purchasing of low-cost, high-volume goods for maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) activities Typical MRO goods include office supplies (such

as pens and paper), office equipment and furniture, computers, and replacement parts The Internet can

transform corporate purchasing from a labor- and paperwork-intensive process into a self-service application Company employees can order equipment on Web sites, company officials can automatically enforce purchase approval and policies through automated business rules, and suppliers can keep their catalog information centralized and up-to-date Purchase order applications can then use the Internet to transfer the order to suppliers In response, suppliers can ship the requested goods and invoice the company over the Internet In addition to reduced administrative costs, Internet-based corporate purchasing can improve order-tracking accuracy, better enforce purchasing policies, provide better customer and supplier service, reduce inventories, and give companies more power in negotiating exclusive or volume-discount contracts In other words, the Internet and e-business have changed the way enterprises serve customers and compete with each other, and have heightened awareness for competing supply chains (see sidebar, “Supply Chain Management”).

Supply Chain Management

Supply chain management (SCM) is changing as companies continue to look for ways to respond faster, improveservice for customers, and maximize sales while decreasing costs SCM solutions must support highly

configurable products, such as computers and automobiles, global markets with local specifications, and widely dispersed suppliers and partners Yet most companies’ SCM solutions are linear, sequential, and designed for controlled conditions They rely on accurate forecasting of demand, but are disconnected from the actual demand Decisions are made centrally, and changes typically take days, weeks, or even months However, companies increasingly need to respond to changes in hours and minutes Supply chains in this century must be

adaptive and provide greater visibility, velocity, flexibility, and responsiveness to enable enterprise value

networks to adapt to changes in supply and demand in real time

Management Shift

As supply chain networks extend across organizational and geographic boundaries, companies must find ways tomanage the unmanageable The future of supply chain management lies in the ability of the enterprise to respond instantaneously to shifts in global supply and demand, and to major events that occur across extended supply chain processes The faster a supply network can adapt to these events, the more value that will be created For example, with Walldorf, Germany-based SAP® mySAP™ Supply Chain Management (mySAP(tm) SCM), enterprise systems supplier SAP is delivering what it believes is the most adaptive supply chain

management solution available on the market In addition, SAP is developing adaptive-agent technology and repair-based optimization that is expected to enable the next generation of adaptive solutions and services.Supply chain management is now the key to increasing and sustaining profitability In fact, Stamford,

Connecticut-based Gartner Group recently predicted that 91 percent of leading companies that fail to leverage supply chain management would forfeit their status as preferred vendors

According to SAP, mySAP SCM has demonstrated bottom-line benefits for its users For example, New York, N.Y.-based Colgate-Palmolive increased forecast accuracy to 98 percent, reduced inventory by 13 percent, and improved cash flow by 13 percent The reason: mySAP SCM enables end-to-end integration of supply chain planning, execution, networking, and coordination

The Profits of Adaptive

Proponents of adaptive supply chain networks say that by sharing information about customer demand with all partners simultaneously—rather than in the traditional, sequential fashion, with its inherent delays—network partners can act more like a single entity to stay in-sync with customer needs

The adaptive supply chain network puts the customer at the center of all activities in the supply chain, which allows companies to improve overall costs and profits across the network, instead of just shifting costs to other parts of the supply chain Given the dynamics of today’s markets, manufacturers need to rethink their business model on an almost continuous basis, keep redefining markets and pricing, serve ever-smaller customer niches, and provide increasingly customized products

Internal integration helps enterprises break down functional silos and share actionable information The adaptive supply chain network relies upon real-time integration of all supply chain systems, including networking, planning,execution, coordination, and performance-management systems But, it also requires integration across systems that support a variety of functions beyond the traditional supply chain

Customer relationship management (CRM) is about capturing customer requirements, building life-long customerrelationships and brand value, and influencing demand through promotions This information must be fed back into the supply chain network to improve planning Although this flow of information generally does not occur now, it represents the key to customer-segmentation strategies and effective demand management, which will lead to increasing overall profitability Customer feedback and trends must also drive product development to ensure that products are designed according to customer requirements

In addition, integration between a product life-cycle management (PLM) system and an SCM solution reduces time-to-market for new products and ensures that engineering changes are seamlessly integrated back into manufacturing Last but not least, aligning a company’s business model with operational capability requires engineering and sourcing products differently To support mass customization and postponement strategies, products tend to be designed in a modular fashion and sourced from fewer strategic suppliers Close

collaboration with these suppliers on product design is essential to reduce time-to-market, increase product quality, and ensure that products are designed for supply

With that kind of integration, a superior understanding of the customer drives everything—CRM, product design, supply chain operations, and even the value proposition of the entire network In an adaptive supply chain network, SCM, CRM, and PLM must all work together That is the hallmark of a truly customer-centric

organization—and the key to profitability

Competitive Advantage

Making adaptive supply chains a reality means fundamental changes in a company’s internal operations, starting with the integration of processes and systems across organizational boundaries Then, companies can leverage the increased visibility within and across organizations to achieve change in their supply chain processes, including functionality for the following

Dynamic Collaboration

Traditional supply chains rely mostly upon inventory and assets, but the adaptive supply chain network is information-based—it uses shared data for planning and execution processes By incorporating data garnered from collaborative processes (such as vendor-managed inventory [VMI]; collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment [CPFR]; collaborative supply management; and collaborative transportation management), these networks replace inventory and capacity buffers (long used to make up for a lack of supply chain visibility) with information

Distributed Execution

Most execution systems are ill-prepared to support the emerging virtual supply network Distributed execution considers the distributed nature of processes in a world of outsourcing, in which multiple partners in the extendednetwork might manage a single process Distributed execution allows the management of processes across different ERP systems by supporting cross-system integration and collaboration

Event-Driven Coordination

Today, even small disruptions in supply chains initiate a wave of e-mails, faxes, and phone calls just to keep pace with the problem Adaptive supply chain networks address the challenge of managing the virtual enterprise

through up-to-the minute monitoring and control of business processes and the rapid, intelligent resolution of exceptions Event-driven coordination complements adaptive planning by trying to solve supply chain exceptions locally to support existing, optimized plans The result? Faster response to market changes and instantaneous adaptation to customer needs across the enterprise and the network.

Continuous Performance Management

Most executives would agree that consistent performance metrics are the key to steering the behavior of individuals and reconciling conflicting goals across functional areas However, key performance indicators (KPIs) also play a major role in managing collaborative processes and in providing decision makers with actionable information to increase the quality and speed of decisions

Continuous performance management enables closed-loop learning processes by allowing the company to measure the quality of processes constantly, and by feeding this information back into supply chain planning Besides addressing the need for consistent performance metrics, companies are increasingly complementing supply chain KPIs with balanced scorecards to get a level view of the state of the organization, and to align operational targets with strategic objectives across functional silos

Combined, these elements enable companies to implement closed-loop learning processes across the supply network In business, the ability to adapt to change is increasingly important For those who do it right, the adaptive supply chain network will be an important competitive weapon Those who don’t may well become the dinosaurs of their industries [4].

Value Chain Integration

No other business model highlights the need for tight integration across suppliers, manufacturers (see sidebar,

“The Manufacturing E-Commerce Bottom Line”), and distributors quite like the value chain Delays in inventory tracking and management can ripple from the cash register all the way back to raw material production, creating inventory shortages at any stage of the value chain The

resulting out-of-stock events can mean lost business The Internet promises to increase business efficiency by reducing reporting delays and increasing reporting accuracy Speed is clearly the business imperative for the value chain

The Manufacturing E-Commerce Bottom Line

The economic downturn in the United States has played havoc with the country’s manufacturing and engineering sectors for more than three years, leading to the longest continual month-over-month decline in industrial production since World War II But, if there is a bright spot in what economists are predicting for manufacturers in

2004, it is a trend toward increasing e-commerce revenues and initiatives within the industrial sectors

The Federal Reserve recently reported that production in American factories fell 3.3 percent The September 11 terrorist attacks created additional uncertainty in all markets, but particularly in manufacturing, where inventory levels among retailers and suppliers were already high Consumer spending for durable goods took a drop in the

wake of the attacks and as a result of the developing war on terrorism Analysts also say they do not expect an uptick in manufacturing production until consumers begin spending with confidence.

Still, companies like General Electric and General Motors were reporting increases in online sales and predicting gains in e-commerce by the end of 2003 Officials at GE indicate they expect to increase the amount of online revenue calendar-year-over-calendar-year from $9 billion to $24 billion

Historically, online revenue figures in manufacturing, engineering, and supply sectors have been difficult to determine, because most companies in those sectors do not separate online revenue from other income Economic statistics compiled by the U.S Department of Commerce and others have consistently noted that although e-commerce activities have continued to grow despite unfavorable economic conditions, determining the exact portion of the national economy they represent is difficult

A recent study by the National Association of Manufacturers (the leading industry group of industrial producers) saw dramatic increases in the number of companies developing Web-based activities to reach both new

customers and suppliers Despite the intense hype surrounding e-commerce, right now it’s still just a small fraction of most business and manufacturing operations But, nearly three quarters of the companies surveyed reported they were developing e-commerce initiatives to grow their revenues, a harbinger of dramatic change down the road As capital spending rebounds, there should be a significant increase in networking and business-to-business software investments

In another recent study of e-business activities within the manufacturing sector

(commissioned by Interbiz, a division of Computer Associates International), a significant increase in focus was shown on e-commerce activities in 2002 within manufacturing and related industrial areas According to the survey, 56 percent of manufacturing concerns indicated they were actively involved in e-commerce, with 89 percent reporting effectiveness within their e-business strategies; 22 percent reported those activities as “highly effective.”

Unfortunately, speed can be costly Today, approximately 60,000 businesses exchange business documents such as orders and invoices with their trading partners through a standard communication and content protocol called Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Most EDI implementations use leased lines or value added networks (VANs) that require significant integration for each trading partner Network design, installation, and

administration can be costly in terms of hardware, software, and staff In fact, these costs are the key reason thatEDI is most widely deployed only in larger companies

Moving forward, all companies will be able to take advantage of value chain integration through the low cost of the Internet Open standards for electronic document exchange will allow all companies to become Internet trading partners and function as suppliers, consumers, or both in this business-to-business electronic commerce This integrated trading will tighten relationships between businesses while offering them greater choices in supplier selection

Issues in Implementing Electronic Commerce

Although it is simple to describe their benefits, it is not nearly as easy to develop and deploy commerce systems Companies can face significant implementation issues:

Value

Businesses want to know that their investments in electronic commerce systems will produce a return Business objectives such as lead generation, business-process automation, and cost reduction must be met Systems used to reach these goals need to be flexible enough to change when the business changes

Leveraging Existing Systems

Most companies already use information technology (IT) to conduct business in non-Internet environments, such

as marketing, order management, billing, inventory, distribution, and customer service The Internet represents

an alternative and complementary way to do business, but it is imperative that electronic commerce systems integrate existing systems in a manner that avoids duplicating functionality and maintains usability, performance, and reliability

Interoperability

When systems from two or more businesses are able to exchange documents without manual intervention, businesses achieve cost reduction, improved performance, and more dynamic value chains Failing to address any of these issues can spell failure for a system’s implementation effort Therefore, your company’s commerce

strategy should be designed to address all of these issues to help customers achieve the benefits of electronic commerce.

Your company’s vision for electronic commerce should also be to help businesses establish stronger

relationships with customers and industry partners For example, a successful strategy for delivering this vision isdescribed by three workflow elements (platform, portal, and industry partners), each backed by comprehensive technology, product, and service offerings

From self-service portals to transaction processing, a successful workflow strategy can be the underlying engine delivering state-based, processed-focused control services for e-business applications Human labor is

expensive, and workflow technology allows e-businesses to supplement, and in some cases eliminate, reliance

on human supervision and intervention

E-businesses need workflow technology to react rapidly to process changes For example, an instant change to the workflow process can be accomplished with a simple change to the workflow map by a nonprogrammer, to effect temporary or continuous changes in the business process, thus accommodating short-term business needs or long-term process improvements A workflow driven e-business will see immediate shifts that allow it to process more efficiently under high volume circumstances

The bottom line? Workflow design tools should be a core requirement for e-business applications A detailed discussion of workflow technology is presented in Chapter 2, “Types of E-Commerce Technology.”

Now, let’s take a look at the transformation of the scope of the Internet and the Web The discussion centers around the Session Initiation Protocol’s (SIP) effect on multimedia-enabled e-commerce

[3]Microsoft Corporation, “Electronic Commerce Explained,” ©2003 Microsoft Corporation All rights reserved The Business Forum 9297 Burton Way, Suite 100, Beverly Hills, CA 90212, (August 2002): pp 1–19

[4]Runge, Wolfgang and Renz, Alexander, “Adaptive Networks Broaden Relationships,” © Copyright 2003 SAP

AG All rights reserved, SAP America Inc., Strategic Planning & Support Office, 3999 West Chester Pike, Newtown Square, PA 19073,USA, [Advertising supplement in June, 2002 edition of MSI, Reed Business

Information, 2500 Clearwater Drive, Oak Brook, IL 60523 (June 2002)]

[6]Vacca, John R., Net Privacy: A Guide to Developing & Implementing an Ironclad ebusiness Privacy Plan, McGraw-Hill Trade, 2001

The Scope of the Internet and the Web

The renaissance of the Internet age launched an entirely new set of communication technologies and methods

As multiple technologies evolve and interoperate, so do complementary standards, such as those for multimedia applications The advancement of multimedia applications for the Web has resulted in a wave of new

technologies to enhance the Internet experience From voice to video, the latest developments have resulted in the requisite standards to allow for the full maturation of the technology

Voice over IP (VoIP) has gained acceptance within the last few years, with older standards enabling the

technology As more advanced standards mature and enhanced capabilities and features become available, the adoption of VoIP has begun to take off For example, H.323 is currently the dominant standard for initiating a voice session But, as more multimedia services, such as unified messaging, video conferencing, instant chat, and presence, gain acceptance in an Internet Protocol (IP) environment, more robust standards are needed Hence, the creation of an HTTP-based protocol—Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)

SIP’s main functions are signaling and call control for IP-based communications It defines the desired service forthe user, such as point-to-point calls, multipoint conferencing, text, voice, or video Using the protocol, SIP servers perform a routing service that puts the caller in contact with the called party, taking into account the desired service and user preferences Because SIP has its foundation in HTTP, it eases the integration of voice with other Web services

The Benefits of SIP

As the new voice-ready IP standard, SIP enables the initiation of an interactive Internet experience involving multimedia elements, such as video, voice, chat, gaming, and virtual reality The main advantages of SIP for the VoIP market include enhanced scalability, easy implementation, and dramatically reduced call setup time

Another key benefit of SIP for VoIP is the easy integration with many other IP services Through SIP, service providers can easily add services and applications for VoIP customers while minimizing interoperability issues SIP is flexible and extensible, easily supporting a wide array of endpoint devices and configurations More importantly, SIP runs over IP networks, regardless of the underlying networking technology—asynchronous transfer mode (ATM)

By taking advantage of the Internet, SIP technology provides new service capabilities while supporting the use of key services from the circuit-switched telephone network IP-based communications can use SIP Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) for addressing, similar to the World Wide Web, in which the form of the URL

resembles an e-mail address The support of both telephony and Web-type addressing enables IP

communication to seamlessly bridge a telephone network and the Internet Users on either network can reach any point on the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) or the Internet without giving up the existing devices or advantages of either

Enabling Multimedia E-Commerce with SIP

The emergence of SIP has opened up new doors of innovation, enabling the next generation of e-commerce through the use of VoIP and multimedia applications The simplicity of SIP technology is facilitating the spread of VoIP around the world SIP’s straightforward approach has encouraged developers of e-commerce applications and telecommunications providers to implement it into their customer relationship management (CRM) systems

Traditional voice call centers for customer support are migrating to Web support centers where the focus is shifting from pure voice (800 numbers) to e-mail support, text chat, voice, and video with click-to-connect service.The integration of these applications brings a fresh dimension of communication to customer-facing Web sites

As customers experience the benefit of multiple touch points, enterprises are compelled to integrate these new communication methods into their CRM systems As the enabling protocol, SIP is well-suited to bring these capabilities to the user

Because support for instant messaging and presence is built into the SIP, a whole new level of customer communications can take place Presence lets users know the availability of other parties, and when coupled with instant messaging and conferencing, allows for communications to happen in a spontaneous fashion With these added functionalities, the online consumer can experience a rich customer support environment

Because SIP enables real-time voice and video to become viable applications on many e-commerce Web sites, itenhances Internet call center productivity With the click of a mouse, a customer can talk to or be in face-to-face contact with a service representative This level of customer service allows an immediate personal connection with customers—one of the most critical aspects in CRM The adoption of e-commerce will be bolstered further

as consumers begin to rely upon this type of online customer service

SIP-based communications can be achieved with any device, fixed or mobile, such as laptops and Internet-readyphones [5] In addition, because SIP supports name mapping and redirection services, it is possible for users to initiate and receive communications and services from any location, and for networks to identify users regardless

of location This adds an additional level of usability from a CRM perspective As e-commerce spreads to cell phones and other handheld devices, this functionality will increase in importance

Now, let’s look at how to use the Web to reach customers Although customer experience includes intangible, nonquantifiable aspects, it also includes a wide range of entirely measurable Web site elements

Using the Web to Reach Customers

The rules are the same To succeed in e-business, just as in brick-and-mortar, you need customers And, keeping customers is vastly cheaper than getting new ones High rates of customer retention (and the referrals that accompany happy consumers) can mean the difference between success and going back to the drawing board

The challenges that e-businesses face, however, in earning and retaining customers are different from those confronted by traditional business A shopper who drives to the bookstore is not likely to put down the book he wants and drive to another location because of a line at the checkout stand Someone looking for the biggest selection of CDs cannot go to 20 stores in 6 states in half an hour to check their selection And, once you have received personal attention from someone at a store, helping you find exactly what you need, it isn’t hard to decide where to go next time

The options and flexibility of doing business online put much more control in the hands of the consumer, placing

a premium on the performance, effectiveness, and reliability of an organization’s Web site There is no one to apologize to Internet customers when the service goes down, or when an image is missing, or to explain what an error message means And, alternatives are just a click away

For online consumers, the user experience is the most significant factor in customer retention Customer experience comprises a range of issues, including ease-of-use, dependability, speed, as well as less quantifiable aspects of a Web site As the Internet matures and evolves into a ubiquitous, if not preeminent, medium for business, those companies best able to monitor their Web sites and ensure a positive, rewarding customer experience will have an unparalleled advantage in the race to create and retain loyal customers

The Shift to E-Business

There is no free lunch, though, and along with the benefits of doing business in the new economy comes a new kind of customer, one with different expectations and standards by which companies are judged Web sites must offer a consistently positive customer experience to win over consumers Inspiring loyalty is the biggest challenge

to e-businesses, and e-consumers are a tough group to win Thus, the attraction of moving an established, traditional business to the Internet (or of starting a new, pure-play Internet business) involves a variety of factors:

Higher Profile

A company can have a significant Web presence and profile, even with relatively modest depth and breadth to itsinventory On the Internet, a small but very efficient company can have the profile of a much larger, deep-pocketed competitor

24 × 7 Availability

E-businesses do not have to close at the end of the day Information and services can be available any time, any day, allowing revenue to be earned without interruption

Targeted Focus and Cost Savings

Companies do not have to be all things to all consumers Through the Internet, individual customers can get goods and services tailored to their needs Significant savings from, among other things, streamlining inventory and distribution channels are possible in effective e-businesses

New Medium and New Expectations

Internet consumers expect e-business to be faster and more extensive, with more options and services, than brick-and-mortar alternatives They expect their experience online to be easy, as uncomplicated as buying a newspaper or filling the car with gas And, if they encounter any problems with the site, or have difficulty

understanding how it works, or are otherwise frustrated, they know they can go somewhere else, to another Web site, and be there in no time

Speed Wins

Speed is crucial for successful e-businesses Consumers expect Web sites to be fast A useful starting point is the eight-second rule of thumb The rule says that a significant number of users are unwilling to wait longer than eight seconds for a page to load or an action to be executed, and as technology improves and speeds increase, the time users will wait before leaving the site is likely to decrease Many factors, from fundamental site

architecture to network traffic at certain times of the day, affect how fast a site will function Vital for success in any e-business is ongoing monitoring of the performance of its site, identifying cycles of usage and ranges of performance, and making necessary modifications and upgrades to ensure speed

There have been attempts to quantify the economic loss due to unacceptably slow Web page download speeds, which is one aspect of e-business customer churn It is estimated that as much as $473 million is lost per month from customer bailout from impatience

If It Isn’t Broken

Key to the user’s experience and level of comfort in e-business is consistency Whereas a brick-and-mortar business could not redesign the store every month, e-businesses can, and some do The relative cost for changing the look and feel of an e-business is low, and the appeal of adding new features is a strong temptation There is a fine line, however, between a “sticky” site, one that attracts new customers and urges old ones to return, and a site that changes so often and in such ways that customers must relearn the site Instead of spending the extra time to deal with the hassle, they will go to the competition, the one that is fundamentally consistent in its presentation and functionality, and they will stay there