Cyberspace: Dec. 15, 2000
The business model that online retailers use strongly influences the level of their investment, according to a study undertaken by Hackett Benchmarking & Research, the research arm for both Answerthink Inc. and IBM Global Services; retailers who operate with a short-term focus, using such measures from a mature business model as short-term profitability to determine their performance, are apt to invest significantly less in their e-commerce effort than those who operate witha “path-to-profitability” perspective; the latter views e-tail as a start-up investment that should be measured by such criteria as growth of customer base, sales growth and brand awareness rather than by short-term profits; companies that participated in the study include Limited Inc., Neiman Marcus, Bombay Company, Value City and TJX Companies Inc., according to Answerthink, a company that conducts studies in knowledge-worker fields...Privacy for retail shoppers in cyberspace through privacy-certification “seal” programs and other voluntary forms of self-regulation is not working; that’s the conclusion of a recent Los Angeles Times report that passed along the new “conventional wisdom” in Washington, D.C., that Congress soon will have to legislate “basic rights” for online consumers.
