They must do this in a way that maximises economies of scale and minimises stock losses. The small volumes most sites sell compounds this. Therefore, purchasing efficiencies, stock range, and buying expertise are vitally important to success. So the retailer must take responsibility for ensuring that the customer gets it in a timely, inexpensive fashion. Marketing over-spend on poorly conceived business is implicated in many deaths, but is hardly the silver bullet.
Marketing is critically important to online retail because of the plethora of competitors.
In this environment, awareness and differentiation is key. They run systems to ensure customers can see, select and order the goods. They run systems to purchase, manage and deliver the inventory. They run systems to maintain customer relationships. Industry scuttlebutt had it that dstore was using MYOB as the ERP system of choice.