Question #3: What were the most common mistakes made in the first wave of E-Commerce and how can we learn from them as educators?

Respondent 1: Don't give money to inexperienced youngsters who convince you that all the rules of the economy have suddenly been blown away. Emphasize the fundamentals. E-Business changes the bundle of services that can be offered, the degree of personalization, the speed of change, expands reach, lowers transaction costs--but this does not guarantee any e-business will succeed.

Respondent 2: Investors, Managers, etc. became enamored with the technology and forgot that this is still business. A solid business plan with realistic expectations is still needed.

Respondent 3: Be aware of hype. Business must make a profit.

Technology is often best applied to improving

efficiencies as opposed to creating brand

new business models.

Respondent 4:

Respondent 5: a lack of understanding of the consumer and failure to adress what motivates them. Failure to provide a safe and secure environment, not just from hackers but from fraud artist.

Respondent 6: Too much focus on content, reliance on advertising, and poor revenue generation.

Respondent 7: Business model with no substance - or no business model!

Assuming "things have changed" when it comes to valuing a company and/or a business plan

The assumption that "if we build it they will come"

Respondent 8: Very bright, very young people had amazing ideas but they had no skill to (a) evaluate them and (b) run them. Management skills were nowhere to be found in many of these early, now deceased businesses.

Respondent 9: No reply

Respondent 10: They pursued growth only without considering profitability. It is time to focus on profitable growth based on solid business model and efficient back-end operations.

Respondent 11: absence of concrete business models, we need to present the destructive effect of untimely intorduction of ideas

Respondent 12: Thinking that "e" made it special. The basic rules of business still applied. "e" does nnot remove the need to do what it previously took to be successful.

Respondent 13: Too many bad business models, especially in their proposed revenue models.

Respondent 14: Believing irrational exuberance. Making money from other people's irrational exuberance wasn't a mistake.

Respondent 15: Some considered e-commerce to be something different from commerce. We had just not seen howclosely one approximated the other.

Respondent 16: Seeing technology as the solution rather than thinking through business itself.

Believing that whatever you did in EC was going to win - we need some business realism

Mistakes happen - what is important is learning from them but still keeping fresh ideas and an orientation towards risk taking, novelty, managed change etc

Respondent 17: Not understanding the intrinsic limitations of the underlying technology, especially security and privacy. Believing the BS put out by self-serving folks in every walk of life who didn't know anything.

Respondent 18: It was technologically driven rather than driven by what it could add to the processes of marketing, management, etc

Respondent 19: the sizzle companies - cute logos, flashy consumer products - got a lot of attention. but the real power is in b-2-b e-commerce

Respondent 20: Poor security

Not enough descriptive detail for consumers

This is a double barreled question ... poor design

Respondent 21: 1) Thinking that you could expand markets infinitely as the web was expanding. 2) thinking it would solve problems of strategy. 3) trying to be all things to all people. Key learnings: don't believe the hype

Respondent 22: The most common mistake was to think that e-commerce was going to substitute traditional commerce. I believe that it is not a substitute but rather a complement

Respondent 23: That e-Commerce was worth something in and of itself.

Respondent 24: too much money and not enough ideas, the business planning, modelling and forecasting seemed to be forgotten and we need to ensure that we teach this stuff as rigorously as ever did

Respondent 25: The most common mistakes are either the believe that e-commerce is god and for that reason you do not need common sence and business models/strategy.

The other one is the believe that e-commerce is a seperate issue, not a part of the ongoing business. The most failures have been in companies that did not have a on-going business. Even Amazon.com has seen the advantage of having a brick and mortar business.

Respondent 26: The obvious mistake was that companies simply transferred their traditional marketing concepts online in the hopes that they would apply. This was not the case. Retaining customers is hugely important in the online environment, yet companies aimed at acquiring customers instead - The eCommerce marketplace rewarded revenue, not profitability.

Respondent 27: Assuming that everyone would be using ecommerce straight away.

We can learn that to teach students we need to give them an understanding of the theoretical principles at work eg communication, behaviour etc and that ecommerce is a context that is significant.

Respondent 28: poor websites without an alternative method of contacting the firm breed dissatisfaction. there were and continue to be sites that have not been properly developed and are outdated. we must teach our students that it is imparative to have a good user friendly site that is easily updated prior to launch.

Respondent 29: Lack of strategic planning in terms of marketing channel development and demand change contingency planning

Respondent 30: Failure to deliver customer value!!!!

(a) Companies focus almost exclusively on getting new customers rather than delivering value to customers.

(b) Companies were run by techie that were more interested in cool websites than sites that were fast to use and delivered value.

Respondent 31: I am not sure if you are asking about the 1st wave of e-commerce or e-commerce education.

In a way, however, both questions may have a similar answer. To soem degree, there was a failure to anchor activities in the theories and practices of traditional business. For example, my students start the Internet Marketing class with traditional topics: competitive analysis, segmenting, targeting , positioning, etc well before we start talking about technological options available to business.

Respondent 32: Forgetting about the business model and ROI. Business leaders thought that this was a totally new and different business model and would give $$ to a "business plan" written on a napkin. ROI is a critical concern for all business whether bricks or clicks.

Respondent 33: As near as I can tell, very little consumer research (demand studies) was done before large sums were committed to the various business models that were tried.

Respondent 34: 1. E-tail and advertising are areas in which e-comm systems have the least impact. Market Research, EDI,logistics, and Channel design are much more important economically. Course coverage should follow the potential impact.

2. Cell phones, under WAP or DoCoMo, are the more ubiquitous access media, even for B2B communication. We need to study more how B2B negotiations and communications have changed with this technology.

Respondent 35: Too much emphasis on the practitioner side/input without academic research. At that time, any Tom, Dick, and Harry with some computer knowledge set up an outfit and thought that was it. People did not look before they leaped.

Respondent 36: not sure

Respondent 37: Too much focus on teaching web page design, or creating online stores through particular software packages.

Respondent 38: 1. Business was left out of e-business.

2. What we learned from B2B wasn't applied to B2C.

3. It's a disruptive technology and a new paradigm (e.g., business without borders).

4. Where there's confusion there's opportunity; there's a LOT of e-commerce opportunity because there certainly is a lot of confusion.

Respondent 39: Believing that ecommerce is a savior for lax business practice

Respondent 40:

Respondent 41: Poor, inappropriate business models (pets.com) for online commerce & unbridled greed. Too many very bright people trying to make theirs before the illusion evaporated.

Respondent 42: One of the most common mistakes made in the first wave of E-Commerce is to focus too much on its potential, and forget the more conservative evaluation criteria such as ROI.

Respondent 43: In my opinion, the biggest failure of the first wave was the prevalence of the "gold rush" mentality. Businesses were started without a clear plan for making a profit and with a complete denial of the idea that markets are built through product development, customer service, and marketing. Many otherwise sane business people really believed that E-Commerce sales would take off overnight, instantly and radically transforming the landscape. Through a combination of greed and impatience, they spent far too much money for far too little in returned value.

Respondent 44: 1. Believing anything connected to e-commerce was a valid business model.

2. Throwing money after ill-advised businesses.

Respondent 45: Too high expectation

Just normal development

Respondent 46:

Respondent 47: Mind the fundamentals.

Respondent 48: "in the year 2025, we will all be surfing via telepathy and telecommuting and ....." There were so many bogus numbers tossed out, just a little basic math could have shown they were wrong.

To many examples ignored the basic fact that you have to make money and there were too many examples used of "good" companies (used in textbboks and hte media)that could never explain how they would ever become profitable.

Respondent 49: The idea that e-commerce represents a very new busienss model, and that doing it well is without much investment or attention.

Respondent 50: Unrealistic expectations, particularly the tendency of investors to expect profitability in unreasonably short time periods.

Respondent 51: blind optimism without adequate reference to established business models.

Learn by treating e-commerce as part of business, and not necessarily the most important or most exciting

Respondent 52: Poor business model

Hijacking of the business model

Irrational xpectations

Respondent 53: Spam, shady operations and unethical behavior.

Respondent 54: Too little prior education of prospective users (both b2b and b2c)- The ignorance of the b2c ones couldn't be helped but the b2b ones should have been helped sooner and better.

Respondent 55: Setting up completly new Internet-based facilities. I think the multi-channel is a liveable strategy, just because of the fact that the channels are complementary: information-searching and actual buying are 2 very important steps which may be perfectly considered through 2 different channels.

Respondent 56: There was no mistake. I believe we should embrace the latest trends, teach it, and move on. The principles do not change (just the beta weights). We can realize this, adjust our language, and continue to offer quality education. The mistake was in taking so long to explore e-commerce in our research. We missed the mark by about five years; now the conferences are full of burgeoning research. This does not invalidate current research, but we should be innovators, not late majority.

Respondent 57: forgetting the fundamentals. Focusing on buzz instead of solid business practice.

Respondent 58: First mistake was to offer e-commerce as silver bullet instead of part of toolset of modern corporation... did promises all advantages without outlining the pittfalls...

Respondent 59: assumption that technical success would guarantee business success. Usually this meant under-investing in appropriate marketing, although some companies over-invested in inappropriate advertising while yet under-investing in marketing.

Respondent 60: e-commerce is not the "answer to all of our prayers" -- it must be integrated with other systems, processes, and procedures -- it should be part of a firm's strategy

Respondent 61: Underestimating operational issues backing up e-commerce initiatives and brand building costs.

Respondent 62: Trying to push the technology on consumers when it wasn't needed or wanted. Consumers will dictate what will work and what won't. Early on, practioners didn't really have any idea what might work and what wouldn't, so they tried lots of different things. In the future good consumer research and past experiences will help guide the way.

Respondent 63: Ignoring the fundamental tenants of strategy (therefore there should be a strong strategy component to any core set of EC classes).

Respondent 64: Thinking that good marketing and business practices did not apply in that new environment