Page 276 - Duct Tape Marketing

260 Part IV: Getting the Word Out without Advertising

Is E-Commerce Right for Your Business?

Because of the Net, consumers can buy from literally all over the world. This
presents a huge opportunity for your business if you offer great pricing on
high-ticket items or if you sell high-demand, hard-to-find products, and if your
product lends itself to online sale and distant delivery. This section helps you
assess your odds for success.

Be aware that even a moderate foray into the e-commerce arena involves
competitive research, site construction, and administrative retooling to serve
an online market. And once you decide to open your business to online cus-
tomers, you incur costs for merchant account set-up, service and transaction
fees, security systems, marketing, fraud management, refund and return poli-
cies, fulfillment, order tracking, and site update and maintenance.

Contact Web site design and management companies for individually tailored
e-commerce sites and service packages. Or check out ready-to-customize site
templates and hosting packages, such as these:

ߜ Microsoft Small Business Center Commerce Manager Package:

www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/products/online/cm/
detail.mspx

ߜ Yahoo! Small Business Merchant Solutions:

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/business_services/

E-commerce green lights/yellow lights

To decide whether e-commerce is for you and your business, consider the fol-
lowing questions. Yes answers are e-commerce green lights. No answers are
flashing yellow lights — indicating obstacles you’ll need to overcome before
selling your product over a distance.

ߜ Can you explain your product easily via written descriptions and
photos? Or do you have a high-touch product, such as clothing, that
requires greater effort to describe thoroughly so that customers really
understand what they are buying.

ߜ Is your product easy and affordable to package and ship? Perishable,
fragile, and hard-to-package products present special handling needs,
and some products are simply too heavy to ship over long distances.
Also, e-commerce sites serve a global marketplace, so be prepared for
the realities of shipping over international borders.