Strategy needed before Web site launch.

• Author: GOULIQUER, DIANNE
• Position: Brief Article

Roughly 80 per cent of Canadian retailers have yet to tap the Internet and incorporate it into their businesses, a Canadian research firm study has shown.

The study, a poll of 132 top Canadian retailers, was conducted between June and August by Toronto-based IDC Canada with funding from Microsoft and Compaq. It found that retailers are lagging when it comes to setting up a clear Internet strategy.

Anthony Cina, a research manager with IDC Canada, says the survey's findings show many retailers have yet to move beyond a general understanding that they should have a strategy. Cina says that, while 70 per cent of the retailers surveyed said they have a Web site, only 50 per cent consider e-commerce a 'hot issue'.

"The Internet is much more than simply selling to customers online," he says. "There are a number of different things that retailers can do to help integrate the Internet into their business and really achieve what they're looking for, which is a return on investment."

Of those retailers surveyed, he says most said they planned to implement a "customer service channel" on their Web sites.

"They're planning to implement some sort of interactivity with their customers over the Web. Not necessarily e-commerce, but customer service and support."

He says respondents also indicated plans to switch to Internet-based electronic data interchange (EDI) systems because they are less expensive and more open to facilitate purchasing.

But Cina says there is no hurry for companies to incorporate the Internet into their businesses. Instead, they should make establishing an Internet strategy a priority.

"I don't think there should be a hurry. I think what's necessary is to stop and take a look at what the Internet can do for their business."

Sherry Da Rosa, a Thunder Bay-based Web site designer, says an Internet/e-commerce strategy will make all the difference when it comes to venturing onto the Internet. As manager of her home-based business, Masterpiece Graphics, she tells her clients to decide what they want their Web site to do to complement their businesses.

"First and foremost, I tell them to decide what they want to accomplish," she says. "Do you want to increase customers? Increase information? Sell products?"

She says setting up a Web site just for the sake of having one is not much of a strategy. Businesses need to be more creative if they want to make it online. That means finding new ways to get people to their sites and keep them coming...