Online Malls an Ideal Place to Set Up Shop

Whether you already run a brick-and-mortar store, operate a mail-order house or just have an idea about something you want to sell, you’ve undoubtedly given some thought to becoming an “e-tailer.” After all, there are millions, no billions, of dollars to be made from e-commerce and why shouldn’t you get your share?

Besides, by adding a “dot-com” to your company name, you might be able to go public and overnight turn your small retail business into a multimillion-dollar Internet conglomerate.

Dream on.

For every entrepreneur who becomes an Internet millionaire, there are untold numbers who are struggling to eke out a living. Nevertheless, there is money to be made from online sales, provided you go about it correctly, market your products competently and, by the way, have products or services that people actually want to buy.

I’ll start out with the assumption that you have a product that’s in demand and a good idea of your market. If not, go back to the drawing board before setting up shop on the Internet. Putting up a shingle in cyberspace is no guarantee that people will click a path to your virtual door.

Your next step is to set up an online presence where you can advertise and sell your wares. This process can cost anywhere from nothing to far more than you could ever afford. Companies can easily spend several million dollars on a Web site, but you can also make money by setting up a storefront in one of the many free online shopping malls.

Although specifics vary, most of the free online e-commerce hosting services (see accompanying chart) make their money by selling advertising that is displayed on your page. They’re hoping that lots of people will come to your site and that they can sell those “impressions” to other companies that want to reach your customers.

Some online malls, such as ECongo.com, try to avoid displaying ads from companies that might compete with you. Others give you little or no choice as to who advertises on your site. ECongo also offers both a free and a paid program to display your ad on other people’s free sites. Getting the word out, as you might expect, is one of the key factors of e-commerce success. You need to find as many ways as possible to let people know about your online store. Traditional advertising--including newspapers and radio--is effective but pretty expensive. Buying advertising on Web sites can also be expensive, but if you can target your ads to sites that are likely to attract the same type of visitors that you’re seeking, then you’ll get a lot more traffic per dollar spent.

The newest of the free online storefronts was launched Oct. 13 by Justwebit.com, a public company (JTWB) based in Salt Lake City. The e-commerce service includes free Web hosting, a shopping cart for online ordering and an online tool for designing and building your Web site. You can have up to 20 pages and sell up to 2,000 items. The company offers two ways to accept credit cards. It can send you the customer’s credit card number via its Web site and let you validate it manually, or you can apply to have the company validate it at the time of sale.

A number of companies offer credit card authorization. Cardservice International (https://www.cardservice.com/) is one of the leading services that arranges credit card and check guarantee services through participating banks. Typical fees are $14.95 per month, plus about 15 cents per transaction.

Bank of America recently announced a new Internet Order Center (https://www.bamart.com), which can build and maintain an online store for as little as $100 a month plus setup fees. Billed as an end-to-end online selling service, the bank’s offerings will include “shopping carts, credit-card-payment processing, packing slips, shipping fees, order invoicing, e-mail notification services, sales tax calculation, store management, database development and sales tracking,” according to the bank’s Web site. The bank also offers credit card acceptance for businesses with existing stores.

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There are also software programs you can buy to set up a storefront and Web site. WebShop Designer 2000 ($135) from Boomerang Software (https://www.boomerangsoftware.com) is a soup-to-nuts storefront creation program that comes with everything you’ll need to set up and manage a Web site, conduct online marketing, process orders and maintain a customer database. In addition to buying the software, you’ll need to establish an account with an Internet service provider to host your site and a merchant account for taking online credit card orders. Boomerang can arrange an online credit card authorization service for $179 (plus usage fees) if you already have a merchant account, or $295 if they set up your account for you.

Icat (https://www.icat.com) is an e-commerce service operated by Intel that offers a low-cost Web-hosting service starting at $10 a month for a store with up to 10 items. There is no setup fee but you do pay for credit card authorization services. Icat offers a 30-day free trial account.

Of course, there is more to selling items than a Web site and a credit card authorization service. You also have to fulfill your orders. Shipper.com provides warehousing and same-day delivery within Southern and Northern California with its fleet of vans. Fulfillment Express (https://www.fex.com) provides warehousing, national and international shipping and other services including credit card authorization and telemarketing.

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If you’re looking for the ultimate lazy person’s way to make money on the Web, you can set up a “Vstore” with Vstore.com. The company does everything for you--stocks your store, validates credit cards and fulfills your order. All you do is spend about 10 minutes “building” your store on the Vstore site and then do everything you can to promote the store. It’s really not your store--they do the selling. But you get a commission ranging from 2% to 25% depending on the item.

Whether you’re a merchant looking for referrals or a Web site owner looking for extra income, you might want to check out Affinia.com. The service lets you create a “store” that you stock with any of thousands of items that are actually from other people’s stores. When someone buys something from your “store,” they’re really buying it from someone else, but you’re getting a referral fee. You can choose the types of products you sell and let Affinia pick them for you, or you can build a store from scratch and “stock” it with products you hand pick.

Amazon.com recently set up its Zshops that let anyone sell virtually anything (as long as it’s legal). There is a small listing fee (between 25 cents and $2) plus a closing fee that’s based on the price of the item. Amazon also lets you set up your own bookstore, which, like Affinia and Vstore is really a referral system. Amazon does the selling and you get a commission.

Technology reports by Lawrence J. Magid can be heard at 1:48 p.m. weekdays on KNX (1070). He can be reached at [email protected]. His Web site is at https://www.larrysworld.com.

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Free E-Commerce Web Hosting Services

* Bigstep.com: Allows you to build and maintain a Web site for free. You’ll have unlimited access to “do-it-yourself Web-building services,” receive 12 megabytes of storage for images and be allowed to put up an unlimited number of Web pages and catalog items.

* Freemerchant.com: Bills itself as a “partner, not a supplier.” The company makes money from advertisements that shoppers view when they visit your Web site.

* Hotbiz.com: Lets you build and launch your own online store in “less than an hour.” The introductory Web package is free, but the company makes money by offering more advanced services, including contact management and online business chat.

* ECongo.com: Offers a free online storefront that is easy to set up and maintain. It makes money by displaying ads on your page, but it also gives you back 20% of your ad inventory to promote your own products or trade with other merchants.