d the businesses that are most successful with their Web operations are those who are able to not be frightened of the technology and can adapt that technology to their own knowledge (Bloomfield & Coombs, 1992, 466). For instance, there are certain basic steps to setting up a business in the physical world. The business has to choose a form or organization, a location, and proper equipment. Product must be obtained and advertised, orders must be taken and paid for, and a system of collecting money must be determined. When a company sets up a Web site, the elements of shop location, product advertising, and order taking are all combined in one operation (Rheingold, 1994, 112; Goldman, Nagel & Preiss, 1994, 42; Laudon & Laudon, 1996, 16).
Let us assume that two entrepreneurs -- Bill and Tom -- decide to set up the same type of business -- selling sweaters --in the same city. Bill is going to open in the traditional manner while Tom plans to set up shop on the Internet. Bill has decided he needs 2,000 square feet in a heavily trafficked location. He finds space in a strip mall and signs a one-year lease for $1.50 per square foot plus 6 percent of his gross sales. He will spend another $5,000 setting up fixtures, installing phones and paying deposits. With luck, he expects to be open in four weeks. That will give him enough time to hire employees, train them, get stocked with inventory and spend money on advertising. It is safe to assume that his investment will be between $50,000 to $75,000.
Tom, on the other hand, is going to set up his sweater shop in Cyberspace. His first step is to find a location, and he does this by choosing a "URL" (Universal Resource Locator), sometimes referred to as a "domain" name. Registering the name "sweatersbytom.org" costs him $100 and that gives him all the rights to that name for two years. Next he has to find a "host" for his shop. He turns to a category of "domain h
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