a) physical products that cannot be distributed over internet; b) non-tangible products and services that can be delivered to customer online.

For travel and tourism industry fulfillment process is confirmation of reservation, booking and backroom movement of information to Vendor Databases.

Pillar 5) Online consumption is possible with only a few types of companies. It is not synonymous with travel. The closest use would be a virtual tour of experience and use of travel articles to satisfy consumer's interest for information on destinations, activities, etc.

Those selling information can actually have customers consume purchases online. For example, someone subscribing to Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition can browse various newspaper articles online.

Pillar 6) Online Support can be offered regardless of whether product or service is fulfilled and consumed by customer online. Many companies have an online support process in place. Customers can email or visit a special section of company website for support. More sophisticated database-driven company websites will allow users to track orders online and receive support information through use of a password or other form of identification code.

Pillar 7) Online direct one-on-one marketing. Once companies have got to this level of use of Internet, they should be using their customer database and market data to continuously communicate and market their services to their customers. This requires planning and marketing management. An example of this would be an online last minute club targeting specific customers on seasonal or regional specials.

The power of being able to deliver direct marketing programs at press of a key has enormous cost saving implications versus more traditional mail or general advertising mediums. It makes necessary analysis of return on investment of these types of programs much more favorable.

As you can see, there are several important steps in equation to selling online. When planning an e-business strategy, it is necessary to take these seven pillars of e-business into consideration. Ask yourself these questions:

How far do we want to take e-business equation?

How far will our business model and nature of our product offerings and services allow us to take e-business equation?

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Visitor traffic dips

PC Data Online found that traffic to leading ecommerce sites declined about 4 percent in February following an 18 percent seasonal drop in January. Goldman Sachs analysts cited port-holiday seasonality, a slowdown in rate on new consumer adopting ecommerce and slower overall consumer spending as factors in slower month-by-month growth of Internet retailing. However, this year's figures are up 63 percent over last year. Hey. Did anybody see that? I'll say it again. We're up 63 percent over last year! Some blues. Features that will keep your sales growing

Consulting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers released a survey that identified site features that are most likely to capture sales. The research found that with exception of search capabilities and close-up product views, most Website features are never used by majority of Internet shoppers. The search function is overwhelmingly top feature used by consumers, with 77 percent saying they have used search functions while shopping.

Other site features such as wish-lists and personalization were found to be less important to shoppers. As a side note, we found a study by International eRetail Association that listed wish-lists as a tool that works well for building loyalty, so go easy on making assumptions based on Internet studies.

The take-away on all of recent information about Internet retailing is that it continues to grow rapidly in spite of gloom that fills business media. To paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of death of retail ecommerce have been greatly exagerated.