videoalex

I can't help but feel like you omitted two relevant details here - 

1. Gateway was also very active and a model for the Apple Online store around it's launch. (also it's retail launch)
2. Apple got most of its team to build the online store through its acquisition of Power Computing, who were the only ones who did build-to-order Mac clone sales. Their store was such a threat to apple that Apple first ended the clone program to try and crush them, and when Power Computing threatened to make PCs instead, Apple just bought them. (There is a wonderful record of this playing out very publicly in the pages of MacWeek ads from PowerComputing who weekly was threatening various reactionary business plans.