THE 5 LESSONS OF 2004

摘要

This was the year of the almost-recovery. Business bounced back—sort of. The long-awaited Google IPO debut was a smash-but failed to pull the rest of tech out of its funk. Consumers opened their wallets again—but focused their spending on pricey designer-wear and other indulgences, buoying the purveyors of luxury goods while leaving most of the rest of the retail sector gasping. Smart-phones and the applications that give them sizzle ignited a cellular boomlet—but the overall telecom industry continued to stagger. Yet despite the economy's starts and stops, we can learn from the successes of 2004. Amazon, eBay, Google, and Yahoo solidified their positions as the Web's superpowers by spreading the wealth: Hundreds of thousands of people are pocket- ing a chunk of change by pushing product on their own sites for the big guys and taking a piece of the action. Elsewhere, merchants from Apple Computer to Wegmans supermarkets are proving that customer service pays off at the cash register, while others are finding that the smartest strategy is to devote more attention to "good" customers and offload the "bad" ones.