When electronic commerce was young and the outlook was rosy, it seemed that the basic rules of marketing could be cast aside. The most important thing was thought to be a speedy launch to grab a share of the market space. Profit wasn’t a near-term, or even a medium-term, goal. The aim was to get as many visitors as possible to your site, on the assumption that this would, at some stage, translate into profits. Today that strategy is in tatters. Business-to-consumer (B2C) Internet businesses are hemorrhaging money. Since so few of them appear to have found the key to success, investors—for the time being, at least—are wary of backing new ventures or providing second-round financing to the early movers.

When you consider how to make trade-offs, bear in mind the very oldest of all marketing principles: don’t forget your customers

The second wave of B2C businesses—many of them set up by incumbents slower off the mark and only now planning an e-launch—have the luxury of learning from the pioneers’ mistakes. Although no one can yet claim to proffer universal truths about e-marketing, it is clear that many of the basic elements of the traditional marketing process still hold...