I think in many cases the difficulty is that the businesses who had all the other stuff in place already - ordering, logistics, etc. - couldn’t or didn’t want to see the need to incorporate the internet.
It’s easy to say now that the web was clearly going to be the place everyone does everything including shopping but if you’ve already got massive investment in the systems that are doing well for you now, deciding to invest massively in untried and as far as you’re concerned unnecessary and probably dead end systems like “the internet” is really hard to justify.
I’d say Amazon’s major ‘innovation’ was being able to find people willing to fund a loss making business for far longer than any rational person would usually be prepared to pour money down the drain.
It’s hard to remember now that Amazon is this giant money-making, tax avoiding behemoth but they were the Ur-Über in terms of running massive losses for years in the hope of building monopoly or near monopoly market share.
