A lot of online businesses fail - and there are as many reasons for this as failures themselves. There is no one core reason. However there are several reasons which come up time and time again. One of which I believe is orientation. Businesses need sales to survive and many businesses just didn't have the orientation to generate them.

The problem is that businesses tend to be, 'I have a product so I am going to sell it over the internet.' And they set up a small website to sell this product. The problem is that nobody comes to the site - they have no reason to. Because nobody goes to a website for a product. What the website should be doing is looking at the solution to bring users to the site and then sell the product to them.

People who are shopping online are not usually looking for the product you are selling - they are looking for a solution to a problem they are having. For instance let's say that you are selling slimming diet food. People who are searching the net for this are not looking for slimming food - they are looking for a solution to the problem of how to lose weight.

The first job of a business is to get people to see their product. So instead of setting up a website about the product how about setting up a website providing information on how to lose weight. A message board perhaps to help built it into a community could soon turn the site into a portal of losing weight. People will pass the site onto their friends and whenever they are looking to lose weight they will come to your site - and you haven't tried to sell anything yet.

Now comes the easy part - you have lots of traffic from people who are wanting information on how to lose weight and looking for ways to lose weight. You are that person as you have the slimming diet food to allow them to lose weight. Offer a newsletter about it and mention your product as a possible solution on your website and in you articles. Now you have a community who want to by your product rather than a website with a product nobody wants.