So the company overhauled its website to make it less intimidating and more useful to wine neophytes. Because the Web is so new, targeting customers can be an imprecise science at best. But an initial focus is critical to developing a viable business. At the same time, Internet companies should capitalize on their advantage over their physical-world counterparts to much more quickly spot new opportunities or changes in demand and respond promptly, as Virtual Vineyards did. Another common mistake of dot-coms is overlooking the entire customer experience.
Many online companies spend all of their time trying to attract visitors to their websites.
Know your business Increasingly, the Web is being overrun with me-toos. In their rush to launch, some online businesses fail to define and then demonstrate their distinctive value to the marketplace. The Web does offer the opportunity to build new business models, including digital aggregators of services around a major life event, such as planning a wedding or moving to a new community. Even then, it's not enough to have a hot idea and technologically innovative website. Alliances to provide services such as distribution or to create digital one-stop shopping centers should undergo the same consideration and rigor as any store in the physical world would.