Essential Functionalities for Commercial Internet Presence

A balanced implementation of functionalities within a commercial internet presence is important, because of not only the involved complexity and cognitive load required in their use, but also for financial reasons. Investing money on features e.g., software modules, programming time, maintenance and update, etc. that are not valued by online consumers, hinders an efficient allocation of resources, especially when financial resources are scarce, a situation that corresponds too many small businesses operating on the internet. However, literature provides little help for managers to decide which functionalities should be implemented, according to a rational basis. Within this context, this research sought to fill in the gap between literature review and the need for helping companies to understand better how to build and keep online businesses. The authors work identified 16 essential functionalities grouped into four sets: order processing, advertising and prominence, product analysis, and payment.