A Return to Retail Pure-play ain't what it used to be- some bricks and mortar is what your dotcom needs.

In the traditional realm of business, you open a retail storefirst and then eventually launch a Web site. But now that we'veexperienced the dotcom revolution-and counter-revolution-many ofthe surviving dotcoms that skipped that first step are starting torealize the benefits that come from opening a brick-and-mortarlocation.

For some, branching out at the right time offered the chance toextend their life spans. "We realized very early that we couldnot exist purely as a dotcom," says Sal Perisano, 50-year-oldco-founder, chair and CEO of iParty Corp., a publicly tradedretailer of party supplies. "We knew we needed someterrestrial link, some other reality other than a virtual company,to bolster what we were doing."