Take a close look at the web sites featured in Internet Retailer’s fourth annual Best of the Web profiles of the Top 50 Internet merchants. It reveals that Internet retailing is ruled by diversity and imagination, not by convention.

Apparel is one of those categories whose fortunes on the web rise and fall. Sometimes apparel is among the leading categories in sales volume and sometimes it’s at the bottom. But there are some apparel e-retailers who had it figured out from the start and whose fortunes are not dependent on what the category does. Best of the Web in Specialty/Apparel and Accessories: Buckle, eBags, Hanna Andersson, J. Crew, Lands’ End, Undergear

It’s a truism that you can find anything you want on the web and nowhere is that truer than among specialty non-apparel retailers. Skiing gear, camping equipment, toys, auto parts, baseball memorabilia, personalized pencils and an olio of liquidated merchandise are all part of the Specialty/Non-Apparel retailers in Internet Retailer’s Best of the Web. Best of the Web in Specialty/Non-Apparel: Altrec.com, BackcountryStore.com, Cabela’s, Camping World, FAO Schwarz, J.C. Whitney, MLB.com, Oriental Trading, SmartBargains

Retailers early on pegged food and drug purchases as likely candidates to succeed on the web. The failure of many of the web pioneers is no black mark against the concept; rather, it reflects flawed business plans of companies that thought they could create a national fulfillment infrastructure at the same time they were creating a national brand. Today, the infrastructure and brand are the reason that most of the retailers in the Food and Drug category of Internet Retailer`s Best of the Web are succeeding. Best of the Web in Food and Drug: Albertsons, Drugstore.com, Harry and David, Omaha Steaks, Safeway, Starbucks

The difference between the success of today`s online furniture and housewares retailers and the furniture sites that failed a few years ago is that today`s retailers are either leveraging an offline presence or adapting offline techniques to the web, but in such a way that they are more powerful online than they are offline. Best of the Web in Housewares and Home Furnishings: Barewalls.com, Bellacor.com, Bombay Co. , Cooking.com, Crate & Barrel, Fortunoff

No further evidence of how the web has become woven into the life of the American consumer is needed beyond looking at the top retailing sites in flowers, gifts and jewelry. Those most mainstream of purchases have migrated smoothly to the web to the point that web shoppers have made some new-breed pure-plays successful and helped build other brands that started as pure-plays into retail brand powerhouses. Best of the Web in the Flowers, Gifts & Jewelry: 1-800-Flowers, American Greetings, Blue Nile, Guild, Ice, Red Envelope

In a year that has seen online retail sales jump by 30%, somebody must be doing something right. Or more likely, somebodies. Among those somebodies are the retailing web sites that make up the 2003 Internet Retailer Best of the Web—The Top 50 Retailing Sites. They are not exclusively the biggest, busiest or most profitable sites; they’re sites that succeed in a highly competitive market with strategies and innovative techniques that other retailers can learn from. Click here or on the headline above for a complete listing of the Top 50.