But they are very certain that they have only a few years to devise business models that will allow them to function in the Internet marketplace. The dot-coms are coming This year s survey illuminates some of the Internet s impact on retailing. Respondents are bullish on the economy, but they re looking over their shoulders at the dot-coms. Although that doubling was only from 18 percent to 36 percent, nearly two-thirds of companies that don t offer online shopping now plan to do so within the year. Judging by survey responses, a good many of those companies are acting to meet market challenges that are directly related to the dot-com threat.
Most companies don t offer online shopping although they do have Web sites.
They built those sites to create a presence in the Internet economy. But those sites will benefit them only if they are designed to permit the frequent updating required by an economy where speed and flexibility are at a premium. Almost three-fourths of companies with sites have dynamic ones that can be altered easily. Just over half of the companies responding to the survey, however, also reported that their Web sites are strictly standalone operations that are not integrated with other corporate systems. In fact, almost 40 percent of the companies that provide online shopping through their sites reported this lack of integration.