Of critical importance to the success of any e-commerce site are the two factors: rapid application development and quick response time. A three-tier architecture composed of presentation layer, business layer, and data access layer emerges to allow rapid changes in user interface, business logic, and database structures. Too often, such a logical three-tier architecture is considered as requiring a three-tier physical architecture: Web server, application server, and database server running on separate computers. Contrary to the common belief, a Web stress test reveals that the three-tier logical architecture implemented on a two-tier physical platform guarantees a quicker response time due to the reduction in cross-machine communications. This would lead business firms to economize their spending on e-commerce: increasing the number of physical servers to expedite transaction is not necessarily the best solution. Before selecting a particular hardware configuration, a Web stress test needs to be conducted to compare the relative merits of alternative physical architectures. Together with capacity planning, Web stress test emerges as a powerful tool to build robust, yet economical e-commerce sites.