The Problem Solver: A Business E-Commerce Primer

So you're ready to take the plunge and start up an e-commerce site on the Internet. Well, it's about time because most of your competitors are already out there taking their chances in cyberspace.

But how can you guarantee success on the Internet? Unfortunately, there Is no guarantee that you will make it, but there are some steps that you can take to greatly increase your chances.

"The first thing you must do is thoroughly research your industry and products," says Lisa Kerz, Senior Product Developer for the Internet for Pinnacle Decision Systems, a computer consulting and software company in Middletown, Connecticut. "Being first in your market on the Internet isn't always a good thing. Study your competition and see what they are doing right and wrong and learn from their mistakes. If you're coming in late to the game, you have the advantage of 20/20 vision on your competitor's mistakes."

Kerz says you should also determine if there is a cyber-market for your product because (while you may not believe it) not everything can be sold on the Web. She suggests running a focus group or visiting online news and chat rooms to see if there is a market. If there is a demand, remember it's sometimes easier to sell a product through a site that already exists, like a shopping portal, instead of building your own site.

"Funding is always an issue for new startup companies," Kerz says. "If you can't get enough money to start on your own, you may want to consider partnering with someone who is already experienced on the Web."

Choosing a domain name may be one of the most important parts of your business. The Internet name game is the key to getting people to your site. Kerz says it's been rumored that almost every word in the English language has been taken, so you have to be creative. Try not to use hyphens or other punctuation in the name because these tend to confuse people. It's also smart planning to buy misspellings of your name and the rights to not only the dot.com domain, but also the dot.org and dot.net extensions. This will ensure that a competitor won't buy them in attempts to steal away your audience.

Once you've gotten the basics sorted out, it's time to build your site And this is when you need to evaluate the level of technical assistance you need. "You want it to be professional. A web site isn't something you should do yourself if you don't have the skill set," says Stacey Kivel, Director of Information Technology at Pinnacle Decision Systems. "Hire someone with outside experience to mentor you through the process and help you pull a team together."

Time is something that you can't waste when working on the Web. Believe It or not, computer people are using a segment of time called a "web year," that represents how fast time goes by on the Web. Currently a web year is equal to only a few months, meaning the Web is aging (like your dog) quicker than you are. This also means you don't have time to waste and need to hit the ground running.

"One of the things you must consider when starting up your site is who will host it," says Kivel. "Usually, start-up businesses are better off with off-site hosting because they need to make sure the server is up 24/7 and has consistent back ups. I tell people that if they are thinking of hosting internally, they should think about load balancing, clustering and geographic distribution. If they aren't comfortable with those terms, they should outsource."

One of the biggest mistakes an entrepreneur can make is leaving the Design process up to the programmers. Designing a web site requires a whole different set of skills, which touch on colors, graphics, usability and navigation. Don't assume your programmers have these skills; most are purely interested in the code. Excessive graphics that are not optimized for the Web will cause problems because they slow down the loading of the page. Simply put, you want your site to be appealing, but simple.

Think about what browsers you want to support along with their versions. If you try to support browsers that are too old, you will end up with a site that is very boring because you must use technology which renders in all browsers (i.e. HTML) instead of some of the new and more impressive technologies. Kivel recommends building a site that supports Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator versions 4.0 and above. She is also seeing more sites designed for wireless devices.

"Your site should be designed to give your customers the confidence to purchase," says Kivel. "This means you should provide tech support just in case something goes wrong, a FAQ section, a privacy policy and an easy way to use shopping care.

Kivel offers these tips to improve the shopping experience: During the checkout process, only ask for information that is necessary to complete the purchase. If you want to collect user demographics, add a link on your home page and make it optional. Secondly, let the consumer know where they are in the shopping process and guide them through it using clear navigation symbols or buttons. A checkout process that takes 20 pages to complete is not going to be worth the consumer's time. Lastly, a "confirm" page should be displayed prior to the purchase and after the purchase is made, another page should be shown that includes an order confirmation number, a customer service contact telephone number and an itemized receipt of what was ordered. Then tell your customers to "Print this page for your records."

Web security has become a major concern for both businesses and the General public. "Hacker" has become a household word and theft and sabotage are becoming more and more of a problem on the Internet. In response, you need to take action before your site goes live to make sure it's safe and secure.

Kivel says you want to make sure that your web server is secure. If you Are hosting your web page internally, you must think about things like firewalls, turning off guest accounts and encrypting data in your database. If you think you can't handle such measures then you should consider having someone else host your web site, such as your Internet Service Provider(ISP). When your site is hosted externally, you can benefit from the fact that the host usually has a number of security policies in place to protect you.

It's also very important to think of security when coding your web pages. There are a number of ways to improve security such as putting parameter limitations on your query strings and using encryption measures when exchanging data between a user and your server. It is also important to use SSL (secure socket layers) and digital certificates for your shopping carts. Good security practices up front can protect you from a hacker in the future.

Once you've got your site up and running, the challenge turns to increasing traffic. "You need to register your site with the search engines," says Kerz. "There are literally hundreds of search engines and each has a different rule for determining who is at the top of their search list. By embedding meta and keyword tabs into your site, you raise the chances your site will be one of the top ten items to come up for searches. So, before submitting your site to search engines, make sure those tags are in place."

Banner advertising is another way to drive traffic to your site. Some Sites will offer free ad exchanges and there are also barter services for banner ads. There are a number of services you can use to get banner advertising on some of the top web sites; it pays to shop around.

"Of course you can drive lots of customers to your site, but they won't stay or come back if they're turned off," says Kerz. "This is why you must be continuously improving your site and adding new material. Nobody likes a stale site. Work on understanding your customers and making them feel like they're part of a community through seasonal promotions, email newsletters or by suggesting products to customers when they log on. You also need to make sure your site is always up, 24 hours a day. It helps to have an administrator on call at all times to troubleshoot the system should it crash."

Getting an e-commerce business going on the Web isn't as easy as scanning in a pretty picture and getting a web address. It takes lots of time and effort to get it going and then even more effort to keep it successful. "When you are on the Internet, you must remember that the world is your market," says Kivel. "This also means you are competing with everyone in the world for the same market niche, so that makes the job even tougher. But for those who plan ahead and constantly innovate, the Web can be an exciting and profitable venture."

Pinnacle Decision Systems is a privately held professional services and software development company that provides complete, creative IT solutions for information management needs. The consulting division uses the latest technologies to design and develop Internet-based business intelligence systems and data warehousing applications. It creates custom software for Fortune 1000 companies and government agencies with an emphasis on decision support systems. The company's software development division designs, develops and markets software products including HQ Intranet - The Company Communicator, Golf Insight, an on-line golf improvement system, and PinnPoint Plus - The Utility Tool for FOCUS. Pinnacle Decision Systems is headquartered in Middletown, Connecticut with additional offices in New York and Boston. Its Web site is located at www.pinndec.com