Findings

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The study found that significant relationships exist between some of the organizational factors hypothesized and the website success measures. The extent and the nature of these relationships are presented in Tables 2 and 4.

Table 2: Organizational Drivers of Website Success

Organizational drivers of website success	Number of hits per week		Number of sales leads generated		Amount of revenue generated
	Chi Square	Cramer's V	Chi Square	Cramer's V	Chi Square	Cramer's V
1st Mover Advantage (H1a)
Length of time on WWW	.005	.005	.005	.005
Exploit before competitors	.011	.011	.006	.006
IS/IT Experience (H1b)
Level of IS/IT expertise	.003	.003	.007	.007
E-business Strategy (H1c)
Formal e-business strategy	.000	.000	.025	.025
Integrated e-business strategy	.000	.000	.025	.026
Web Champion (H1d)
Leader of e-business project	.000	.000
Planning of Website (H1e)
Security of customer information	.012	.012
Security of payment
Ease of Navigation			.006	.006
Ease of use of checkout	.032	.032
Minimising customer effort in the purchase process			.025	.025
Full Product Catalogue					.005	.005
Uses customer profiles to anticipate future needs			.022	.022
Development Costs (H1f)
Money spent developing Web

Organizational Drivers of Website Success

Two metrics were used to assess the extent to which firms were early-adopters of web technology: years using the Web and the extent to which companies adopted the technology before their competitors. Companies who have been using e-commerce for longer gain significantly more hits and sales leads. However, these hits and sales leads do not turn into significantly more on-line revenue. The majority of the firms (55%) exploited the capabilities of the Internet before their competitors. The early exploiters of the Web gain significantly more hits and sales leads. However, these are not converted into hard cash in terms of on-line sales. Early adopters are reaping rewards in terms of visitors to their site and subsequent sales enquiries but these are not being converted into on-line sales.

The research examined whether there was a difference in how successful a company was depending on the level of IS/IT expertise in the company. Twelve percent (12%) of the companies surveyed have an excellent level of IS/IT expertise in their organization, 38% have above average levels of IS/IT expertise. Thirty-two percent (32%) cited an average level of expertise with the remaining 13% and 5% falling into the below average and poor categories respectively. Those with better IS/IT expertise were significantly more successful in terms of hits and sales leads generated, but not in on-line sales.

The extent to which an e-business strategy had a positive outcome on success was assessed using two measures: the extent to which a formal e-business strategy existed and how well this e-strategy was integrated into the business strategy. Fifty-four percent (54%) of firms have an e-business strategy in place while the remaining 46% do not have an e-business strategy. The results show a significant relationship exists between the existence of an e-business strategy and both the number of hits and the amount of sales leads generated. However, no statistical significance to on-line revenue was found.

Fifty-six percent (56%) have integrated e-business and business strategies, while 17% do not have. Having integrated strategies results in significantly more hits and generates more sales leads but not on-line revenue. Thus, there is partial support for the idea that an e-business strategy leads to a more successful e-business.

Seventy-eight percent (78%) of companies have a person who leads the e-business project in their company. Having such a champion significantly improves the number of hits that a site generates but does not bring significant benefits in the other two success measures—sales leads generated and on-line revenue.

The research investigated the extent to which firms engaged in planning prior to launching their website. The majority of firms actively pre-planned their web presence. However, such planning only has a limited impact on the success of the website. Attending to the needs of customers in terms of securing their information and making it easy for them to use the shopping cart facilities improves the number of hits but not the amount of revenue generated.

Table 3: Planning Issues Undertaken During Web Design

When planning the design of the website, the following were considered important	Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree
Ease of navigation	1%	2%	6%	30%	62%
Projection of a favourable corporate image	3%	2%	12%	36%	47%
Security of payment	4%	3%	17%	24%	53%
Minimising effort in the purchase process	1%	3%	17%	27%	51%
Full on-line product catalogue	1%	7%	17%	40%	35%
Ease of use of checkout facilities	3%	3%	23%	38%	33%
Detailed company information	6%	3%	27%	44%	20%
Site search facilities	2%	9%	28%	28%	34%
Interactive features	39%	27%	24%	4%	4%

Making the site easy to navigate and minimizing the effort to complete a purchase increases the number of sales leads but again not revenues generated. The only planning element that does significantly improve the revenue generating capabilities of the site is deciding to put the full product catalogue of the company on-line from the beginning.

Some firms also continue the planning process once the website is live. 43% use the customer profiles generated from the website to anticipate future needs and requirements of customers. Those who engage in this activity are significantly more likely to generate increased sales leads from their e-business activity. As such, proactive management of customer information obtained via the website can yield successful results in terms of providing a more customized and focused product offering.

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of companies spent between €1 - €6,350 developing their website, a further 22% spent between €6,351 - €12,700, while another 14% spent between €12,701 - €63,500 and 5% spent more than €63,500 developing their website. The amount of money that a company spends on its website is not significantly related to any of the measures of success.

In general, organizational factors contribute to increasing the number of customers who browse the website, and who contact the company with a sales enquiry, but not in the amount of revenue generated. By investigating three measures of success, this research is able to determine the extent of website success along the spectrum of a customers purchase decision. The lack of significance with on-line revenue generated might be explained by the fact that customers choose not to order on-line but order instead by more traditional means. Support for this interpretation is provided in that 75% of firms see their website as a source of sales leads. Given the nature of the sampling frame—Irish gift retailers—this might not be unexpected, as customers may wish to converse with the company prior to placing the order.

Table 4: Retail Specific Factors of Website Success

Retail specific factors of website success	Number of Hits per week		Number of Sales leads generated		Amount of revenue generated
	Chi Square	Cramer's V	Chi Square	Cramer's V	Chi Square	Cramer's V
Clicks & Bricks (H2b)
Webstore that complements other channels			.003	.003
Retail outlets as the key to acquiring customers			.044	.044	.014	.014

Retail Specific Drivers of Website Success

Part of this research sought to assess the extent to which certain traits unique to retail impacted on the success of a website. In particular, the significance of the products' characteristics, the number of products for sale and the extent of integration between bricks and clicks was assessed.

The results show no statistical significance between any of the characteristics of the products being sold on-line and the measures of success. Sixty-five percent (65%) of companies have a product that is easy to ship. However, this fact does not result in higher revenues, a higher number of hits or a higher number of sales leads. Also, even though the literature presents one of the main advantages of on-line selling as the ability to customise products, there is no significance between customizable products and any of the three success measures, despite the fact that 42.4% of companies sell products that are customizable to individual customer needs. The other characteristics—small value item, little need for touch/feel and largely information based—also had no significant impact on the success measures for on-line retailing. The failure to find any significant relationship between product characteristics and success on the web runs contrary to other research (Kiang et al., 2000). A possible explanation for these contradictory findings might be found in the sampling frame employed—Irish gift retailers. The homogeneity of the products being sold by those surveyed may not have provided enough variation for any significances to emerge. The products that are offered for sale are specialist products—those related to Irish heritage. These products are normally only sold in Ireland and a select number of international retail outlets. As such, the uniqueness of the products sold, and their non-availability internationally, could be more important characteristics than any of the characteristics investigated in the survey.

Twenty-one percent (21%) of the companies surveyed had more than 100 products available on their website, with a further 21% offering between 50 and 100 products. The breadth of the product offering on a website did not influence its success: no significant relationship was found in respect of any of the measures of success. This finding indicates that creating extensive e-catologues is not sufficient to generate success.

The website is seen as a complementary sales channel for the majority of companies (62%). Those who use the Web as a complementary sales channel gain significantly more sales leads from their e-business presence. At a more specific level, 43% of companies believe that retail outlets are the key to acquiring new customers (26% believe they are not). Companies who believe that they are presently dependent on retail outlets for new sales generate significantly more sales leads and on-line revenue from their website. These findings provide some support for the notion of creating an integrated clicks and bricks strategy. Further, the integrated clicks and brick strategies are resulting in increased sales and revenue activities rather than an increased browsing on the website.

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