What are the prospects for business-to-consumer sites, and what areas do they need to improve?
Chuang: The B2C sector is getting hammered, to say the least. First of all, online business makes margins thinner. Coupled with that, many businesses have no business being in business. The same principle that goes with traditional business stands with e-business: If you have no model for making money, you can’t survive. Atkinson: On the B2C front, back-end integration is where lots of dot-coms and even brick-and-mortar companies have failed. As a site becomes more successful, you end up with greater costs, especially if you have poor integration on the back end and you have to handle orders and fulfillment manually. Sites still need to make improvements here. Carter: We’re actually seeing stronger growth in B2C than in B2B sector. Many people thought the dot-com crash would result in this big decline in B2C commerce, but now we’re seeing the traditional brick-and-mortar companies really turning up the heat. Customers like to look at a paper catalog and then place orders online, or do
