The second revenue model is completing the actual sales transaction over the Internet. This is often referred to as "e-commerce." The real promise of the Internet is its ability to extend a company's reach beyond the present market area. If you can sell products or services on the Web that can be delivered outside your geographical area, then the world is your marketplace.
Business-to-business e-commerce is growing even faster than online retail; nearly 80% of online transactions are between businesses. While this may not represent so much new money as a new sales channel, it does represent substantial cost savings by reducing transaction costs.

Nirvana for an Internet business is to complete both sales transactions and product delivery over the Web. Entertainment and information sites do this, cutting the staffing and inventory costs for product fulfilment immensely.
Industry analysts believe that nearly all software will be delivered over the Internet in the future.

Ironically, product fulfilment and delivery is probably where an online businesses will either rise or fall. With stiff price competition in some industries, the remaining competitive advantage will be how efficiently you can pick, pack, and ship product. Or how cost-effectively you can pay someone else to drop-ship it for you.

E-commerce is still not simple. While its relatively easy these days to set up a online store, that's no guarantee it'll be successful. You need to have a number of ingredients in place to make it work. But when they are in place, an online store can be very profitable. We cover all these issues in a sister publication, Web Commerce Today (http://www.wilsonweb.com/wct/), and you can learn a great deal by subscribing and then reading all of the back issues we have online (http://www.wilsonweb.com/wct1/).