The paper reports on qualitative case studies of a purposeful sample of e-commerce companies. This is part of ongoing research, aiming at pointing out the qualities that characterize profitable e-commerce activities. The findings are compared with the success criteria derived from previous research on consumers’ evaluation of the e-channel. The paper concludes by discussing the prerequisites for a successful e-business. From our previous research, we have hypothesized that the e-channel should be seen as a complementary channel to the traditional channels. Therefore, we particularly focus on multi-channel retailers.