Turn to most finance managers in business for justification for a digital media presence, and the potential to generate new, non-substitutional revenues from a new channel, for an organsations existing products and services, will trigger all the right buttons. Business cases suddenly become much easier.

But a poorly run online shop will be as damaging to a company as a poor customer service experience, a botched product launch or a lack of supply. Interacting with a company's web site, and especially it's online shop, will generate a lot of personal opinion, in a world where companies trade in brand trust and reputation.

A huge number of factors go into making an online shop experience work well. Some of these will be;

• Product catalogue management and navigation - maximise access to required product and site usability.

• Make sure there is the right balance between;

  • link navigation

  • search navigation

  • index / site mapping

  • transactional support (basket, account, terms, delivery)

  • purchase decision support (FAQ's, jargon buster, terms, delivery)

  • general support (customer care, contact us)

  • Brand promotion (logo, about us)

  • Price / Product / Category promotion (special offers)

  • Channel Promotion (stores, telesales)

  • Other promotions (free delivery, loyalty schemes, sign-up for newsletters)

  • ... and so on!

• Offer management - what's the deal for buying via the web? What makes the store compelling this week?

• Balance between organic online advertising (banner campaigns) search engine optimisation, and Pay Per Click (there is a limit to how much you can spend on the latter if you have a poorly designed and managed site).

• Strong and coordinated integration into other e-business activities, such as e-marketing, e-care and e-CRM.

• Operational control of delivery and returns management - a significant part of the overall online shop business model.

• Effective management of the platform to deliver the latest appropriate capabilities, such as flexibility on management of business rules, variable pricing, and remembering customer details and actions.

• Setting realistic "risk" criteria and parameters for acceptable trading.

• Checkout, checkout, checkout. You've got them there, to let them go is a cardinal sin ... work hard at making sure 'drop-out' is kept to an absolute minimum.

The Digital Business will help you through the key implementation and management issues associated with e-commerce.