Connect The Dots Online or brick-and-mortar? Tough question. But if you have a clear picture of your business, you already know the answer.

The smartest thing I've done in business is shutting down mystore and going exclusively online. Now I have a really neatbusiness. I love it," says Sherry Rand, 54, a Salisbury,Massachusetts, retailer whose online store sells one thing and onething only: gear for cheerleaders. You want pompons in any styleand color? You want megaphones for leading cheers? Then you want toknow about PomExpress (http://www.pomexpress.com), whereRand has conducted e-business in the two years since she shut thedoors on her brick-and-mortar operation.

"Online, I don't have to carry the great overhead of astore, and--from a quaint town in northern Massachusetts--I'mselling globally. We get lots of orders from Europe, wherecheerleading is really picking up," says Rand, who adds thatshe herself was a cheerleader through grade school and college. Inthe years afterward, she sold cheerleader supplies as amanufacturer's rep until she opened her own store. Now thatshe's operating solely on the Web, she says, "This is agreat niche, and, on the Internet, I can conduct business whereverI want to be."

Another devoted dot.commer: Nancy Zebrick, 46, the onetime ownerof a traditional travel agency in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, wholaunched a Web site in 1995 to complement her storefront. In early1998, Zebrick decided the online operation had so many strengthsgoing for it, she shut her brick-and-mortar store.