1. Minimise up-front investment. Opt for an ongoing payment model like EDO Retail.
2. Take a three-year view of investment and returns.
3. Invest in customer service for web customers.
4. Focus on how e-commerce can reduce existing costs in your business.
5. Make sure that existing customers have an incentive to order through the site.
6. Bring new customers to the site through targeted online and offline marketing.
7. Increase the value of each sale by up-selling and cross-selling.
8. Remember the benefit of being easy to do business with.
9. Value offline orders that have been researched online.
10. Look at the cost of losing business to competitors who do operate on the web.

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1. High start-up costs. (Typical e-commerce venture in Britain 1998-2000 had £100,000 up-front costs.)
2. Taking on up-front costs completely out of tune with short-term return
3. Unrealistically high expectations that guarantee disappointment.
4. On-going staff and maintenance costs that are out of touch with the business benefits.
5. Undifferentiated offerings with no clear model.
6. 'Build it and they will come' expectation.
7. Expecting free publicity. Those days are gone.
8. Failure to invest in targeted marketing.
9. Establishing new non-core business units for e-commerce.
10. Unrealistic amounts of management time and business cash spent on e-commerce.

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