Entrepreneurs and managers, who are considering starting an e-commerce should not overlook any of these aspects of the process.

Some readers have asked us to address the basics to establish an electronic business and although the issue is much more extensive that we cover here, we present the following scheme which is valid only for cases of virtual shops (library, supermarket, pharmacy, Sales of cars, etc).


However, we do two caveats: First, we are aware that every business has its specific characteristics and requirements, and this super-synthesis we refer only to the common features in all. And second, we try to give an overview of all major aspects to launch an e-commerce, not assuming that "e-commerce" are all doomed to success, thanks to the millions of Internet users ..." who do not get in the process after the start of the store.

1. Clarify the situation of the project:

Looking for "internet" a business that already exists? You need to add value to a web business that is already running, or is considering setting up a new one based on an outside Internet? Perhaps you are thinking of a completely new business including, but none of this is obvious and not well defined is one of the reasons for the failure of many projects.


2. Define your business goals:

Away from the opportunities of electronic commerce to provide services to other companies or to supply goods and digital services, installation of a virtual retail sale of goods or services may be aimed at reducing business costs of intermediation, extending the scope of the current market and substantial improvement of customer service.

3. Specify the scope of transactions:

If you have a business whose products are delivered to a website with full online sale will require a comprehensive and integrated e-commerce. Moreover, you may need to provide for insurance and after-sales services. But it could be an Internet business that generates traffic "walk" to the real business, or could only aspire to provide the services charged in a separate instance of the web.

4. Have ready the domain (www.elnombredesunegocio.com):

Not only is the brand name but also the store is the location of your business on the Internet as a globally recognized identification card. Even though short-term is raised to install an e-business, it is recommended to check the availability of names which you might use in the future and that the records of a good time, before another forward are ...

5. Register as a cyber-trader:

To charge by credit card and local currency, you must obtain a digital certificate that accredits to sell products online because it complies with strict safety standards. This certification provides the technological companies that specialize in designing electronic systems for buying and selling which in turn are supported financially in the company behind the credit cards.

6. Financial Support:

Similarly, to collect on-line via credit card, you must have the backing of a bank support, financial and information technology. Furthermore, it must take into account that each bank has its own computer systems to which your e-business must adapt and have different costs and fees for the various aspects involved in the service.

7. Specialized hosting services:

A website that has electronic purchase payment required to operate a dedicated server other than requiring by the other websites. The company providing the service for this type of server, you also need to comply with international standards and safety requirements. It is common that comprehensive offers and integrated e-commerce partner financial companies, programming and web page hosting (hosting).

8. Store in terms of website:

The user of the website and retail store functions as an electronic catalog of products with the greatest amount of digitized information helps to make a purchase decision, and as an ordering system and pay online. On the other hand, for the trader, the website is related and is supported by an administrative system that links the inventory and orders on one hand, and the collection system on line with the actual release of the products on the other.

9. Design and operation of the store:

What types of products will be sold? Do they require service guarantees or after sales? How many are now and how many could be in the medium and long term? How much information is digitized on the products and how much is required for users to make a purchase decision? Where did optiene and how should this information be processed? How should one look store graphically with such products and which system to update the contents of it? Additionally, we plan to use the information in databases and apply standard graphics that facilitate the navigation of users.

10. The programming system of payment:

The system of payment, usually we see symbolized in a supermarket trolley (shopping cart) is a program developed to suit the specific requirements of the store, which relates what we call the product catalog, with the purchase the same specific administrative and business systems, which allow you to receive a purchase order, make a charge on a credit card and dispatch a product. This system should make synergy with financial services and accommodation above, and trading with functionality to the store as a catalog.

11. The release of the actual products:

With the situation of most state systems of mail in Latin America and the high cost of private services, this is one of the main obstacles to not detonate the supply of electronic commerce on the Internet. Nothing bearing systems and more sophisticated designed stores if the release of products is a Carm. Be clear that the size and weight of the products have a direct impact on the cost of the entire operation and requirements of transport.

12. Advertising business:

Nobody will come to a virtual store by chance. You have so much responsibility for promoting the business as it has with the points we mentioned earlier. Many e-commerce projects have failed because they did not anticipate to outset the resources and publicity plan for them. An online store needs to be promoted within and outside the Internet as other mass media. This is critical to the success of the store and a strategic way of thinking complement is an early in the establishment of a database of customers with whom they interact as an ongoing promotion.

Finding the best rated hosting reviews can be difficult, but we have put together all the

Find out what your own purpose and goal is with what you want to do. Are you just looking to make tons of money very fast? Or do you want to build a
healthy business online, based form your own home?

If you are looking for the quick buck, I would encourage you to think again and evaluate if you think that is a realistic long term option for
supporting yourself financially. If you really, really want to get rich quick, I suggest you look for information somewhere else because you will not
find what you are looking for here.

If you are looking for the option of building a home based internet business step by step to supplement your income, and maybe even with the aim that
in the future it will provide you with a full income, I suggest you keep reading.

Being clear about your motivation also involves thinking about what you would like to achieve both in personal and financial terms. Is the motivation
that you would like to come free of your job? To be able to spend more time with your kids, have financial freedom, or are you checking out if a
online home based business is something for you?

No matter what your motivation is, it is important to be clear with it because you can then set realistic goals for what you are going to achieve. It
also helps you set time frames for how much time you are going to spend with your new endeavor. If you are aiming to high, you will most probably get
disappointed. Keep your goals achievable, and you will feel like a success when you get your first pay check.

If you state a monthly goal that you would like to achieve, then do not include the time that you are spending building your site. And yes, if you
want to do internet marketing you will need your own website. There are people who are making a living from promoting other peoples products via ads
and via email, but this is not the method recommended here. You can read more about different affiliate marketing strategies in the part on affiliate
marketing.

Depending on how much time you can spend, it will take you a while before your site is up and running and receiving traffic. If you on your first
site are managing 100 unique visitors a month after three months, you are doing well.

Do not expect to see a great monthly income in the first months. My SBI site which is a hobby site is making between 300$ to 600$ a month in
advertising and affiliate income. The site is one year old, and has for periods been without any maintenance at all. I would say that is pretty good.
I did not start to see real income before after 3 -4 months.

SIDE NOTE:

Do not quit your job before you have more then sufficient income to pay all your monthly

expenses and have set aside enough money to cover a few months of expenses if your income

The more developed technology is cheaper, at some point becomes free? The response also helps to understand why the traffic from users on the Internet is determined by the generosity of the content.

In the industrial economy there is a proportional relationship between the performance of the technology and its cost. The best thing is worth. But the advent of microprocessors accelerated process of technology upgrading and making them faster cycles of reproduction of the value of products at lower costs.

More or less in 1988, a cell phone cost $ 1500, but in 1998 (only 10 years later) it cost only $ 200. At present the telecommunications companies give more aggressive in marketing the device for the purchase of a new customer. This enables us to understand where the greatest generosity may become the detonator of the key core business of an enterprise.

What is most evident in telecommunications and other information technology is the same for other industries. Away from the effects of inflation are no better and cheaper cars, medicines, appliances, transportation and services?

Generosity is a key business strategy in the emerging economy. Cheaper products are what critical mass in the growing market is for them. If at the beginning it was a privilege that cheaper telecommunications make more than one line in the house, each family member has a cell phone and that there are dramatic improvements as the identification of who is calling, call waiting or teleconferencing among others.

The demand is changing:

In classical economics the supply of goods grows only if demand increases, but under the principle of constant improvement and cheapening of technology are constantly creating new opportunities for demand (i.e. business). If there is more supply of resources then there is more demand for them.

In this respect, generosity in the new businesses is a key to its expansion in the same way as they are satisfied customers. In other words, generosity is equal to more supply and this in turn becomes more customer satisfaction resulting in more demand.

When information is organized on the Internet, Yahoo is a paradigm of generosity by this. It has been organized more broadly and free information on Yahoo, the more ubiquitous then it becomes recognized.

There are the cases of Microsoft and Netscape which established new businesses based on their generous free navigation of the Web, Sun Microsystems or "gift" the Java code to create a community of programmers in this new language, or QUALCOM "giving "The basic version of the program for managing electronic mail (Eudora) as a function of selling upgrades.

The value of generosity:


Goods and services with more value in a network economy that is emerging as the most shared (ubiquitous), and the most cost effective way to maximize the ubiquity of the gratuity.

I am not suggesting that the new economy is based on the gift of things. No, I'm proposing that generosity is a key strategy for the establishment, expansion or consolidation of business in a networked economy as it has been emerging around the Internet.

Naturally, one might almost say the essence of strategic planning in the web economy, is to determine how to compete and win in a market so generously, which is not only a strategy of marketing business but also it makes sense if generosity is a function of detonation products and services in return.

By Kabir Bedi

E-commerce is becoming increasingly popular as more and more companies decide to take their businesses online. Not only can it act as a efficient revenue channel for businesses, it can also boost their existent sales figures by increasingly accessibility to the audiences.

Here are 8 tips that will help you make your e-commerce website better and more effective.

1. Make your website Interactive!

Your e-commerce website may have a great visual appeal but what customers really look forward to is the usability. Include tools and features that would help your customers interact with your website and understand your products better. Remember, the more they know about your products and their benefits, more are the chances that they'll buy them. So, include product reviews, interactive images, demo videos and even chat app where visitors can talk to an online customer care person.

2. Track Shopping Cart Abandoner

An abandoned shopping cart is not always a lost sale. Rather, you can use it as an opportunity to turn freebie hunting customers into actual revenue generating ones. If your customers are looking for some free stuff, tempt them with the same. Use the 'Get it for Free' model and make them buy products in order to receive free goodies.

3. Target your Email Campaigns

Different people have different interests and shopping patterns. This is why you need to segment your customers and divide them into groups based on their behavior or demographics and then send targeted email campaigns. The more targeted your audiences are, the more effective will the message of your newsletters be.

4. Use Google Alerts

Google Alerts will let you stay up to date with what is happening in your industry. Just include keywords pertaining to your line of business and industry along with your company name. You will get regular alerts about all the relevant news items and happenings.

5. Establish good Inbound Links

Inbound links determine the online popularity of your website. They not only attract traffic but also play a crucial role in determining the search engine ranking of your website. In fact, effective link building is one of the most important processes of SEO.

6. Think about Interactive Presentation

One factor that contributes to the uncertainty of online shopping from physical shopping is that customers cannot touch or feel a product as they can do in real life. You need to bridge this gap by providing big and neat interactive images so that they can experience the product just like they do in a retail store. Make sure all your products are presented in a organized manner accompanied with vibrant images and accurate descriptions.

7. Include Client6 Testimonials

Reviews and testimonials by clients go a long way in making new customers feel more confident about their purchase from your website. They increase the credibility of your business leading to lower shopping cart abandonment and higher overall revenue.

8. Do some Intensive SEO

Search engine optimization is important for all the website, especially so e-commerce website. This is what enhances the visibility of the website on the web and attracts more traffic. With intensive SEO procedures, you can be sure that you get relevant shoppers on your website and not just window shoppers. Hire professional SEO services to make this happen.

Kabir Bedi works as a senior web consultant with LeXolution IT Services, a professional web designing company that offers a range of web services including website maintenance and website design & development services. He helps the company deliver all these services efficiently and effectively.

By David Leonhardt

In the real world, businesses come in every size, from self-employed entrepreneurs like me to mega malls like Wal-Mart.

On the Internet, companies come in every size, too, from a stand-alone ebook sales page with webmaster and owner all in one, to 300 pound gorilla like Amazon, with over a million pages requiring the entire population of a small country to serve as webmaster.

If your site is a single page, it is its own network. But if your site is any bigger, and you have plans to grow, it is a network or is fast becoming one. You need network monitoring.

Most ecommerce webmasters are at least somewhat familiar with website monitoring. Many use a website monitoring service or software to keep track of "uptime" and "downtime".

At your local shopping mall, serious business requires more than just knowing when the front doors are open and when they are closed. Serious ecommerce needs to know more than just when the site is accessible. That is what network monitoring is all about.

Chances are, your e-business owns one of the following, or uses one of the following remotely:

DNS servers: These are used to translate your site name, like www.mycompany.com, to the numbers called "IP addresses" that computers understand. If DNS servers are not working properly, end-users will not be able to find your site and will get an error. Usually only an external or remote monitoring service will detect such a problem.

An FTP server: File Transfer Protocol servers are used to help you exchange files with remote users. If you use FTP, a monitoring service can make sure it is always up and running.

POP3 and SMTP servers: These are used for exchanging emails. If you are using email, chances are you are using SMTP and POP3. If your SMTP server is down, everyone who sends you email will receive an error, stating that your mail server is down and cannot accept incoming email. To say that the impression this leaves your customers is bad would be an understatement. If your POP3 server is down, you will be unable to retrieve email from your mailbox. Once again, only external monitoring will prevent such a problem.

Firewalls: Many businesses use firewalls to protect their internal network from un-authorized traffic, such as spyware, viruses and sabotage by competitors. Furthermore, a firewall is your first line of defense. If your firewall goes down, your whole network may actually become inaccessible from outside. In other words, if you host your own web site and mail servers, those will become inaccessible to the outside world if your firewall goes down. Once again, remote network monitoring is required to detect that a problem exists and quickly get it repaired.

Internet connections: Users come to your network from multiple backbones, depending on the company they use to connect to the Internet and their location. It is important to ensure that your connection performs well for each user. A remote monitoring service can ping your networks from multiple locations around the world, thus testing most major routes to your web server or network. Before hiring a network monitoring service, check to see that they have both your customer geography and the Internet backbone layout covered.

Very few websites of any size and functionality are anything less than a complete network, and many networks rely on servers in different parts of the world.

A good network monitoring service can ensure, as a base, that all servers are properly functioning, that data can be sent to and received from each server, and that each function sharing the server responds as required. An advanced network monitoring service can even remotely monitor the temperature of your servers.

What you need to monitor depends on how extensive your network is. A network monitoring expert can help you determine what needs monitoring. If you own the servers, or are remotely hosted on dedicated servers, you most likely need everything monitored. If your site is hosted on shared servers, you might need fewer functions monitored.

Ecommerce hosting, in simple words, relates to your web host's ability to let you sell your products or services from your website. In its primitive, ecommerce hosting usually means your website has an interface between display of your items and a shopping cart system, proceeding thereon to accepting payment real-time in secured environment. An ideal ecommerce hosting ensures complete buying experience for those viewers of your website who wish to acquire your products or services.

While this is the end-solution for ecommerce hosting, the way the process is arranged differs in more ways than one. This means that while the site users' experience may not vary much, for merchants it will be a trade-off among several possibilities. In the paragraphs below, we will explore various tenets of ecommerce hosting from a merchant's point of view.

By Josh

By Adam Kling

There seems to be a lack of information on the subject of Web hosting. It amazes me, because the Web host is literally the backbone of your site. If you get stuck with a shoddy host your site won't appear on the Net. Your email won't come through. Your shopping cart won't function. Without a dependable Web host... your online business would be out of business! So how do you make heads or tails out of the bandwidth, megabytes, POP3s, FTPs and SSLs? Due to the lack of information available, most site owners make one of two choices: they pick the least expensive package, or they choose the one that offers the most features "just to be safe". Allow me to define a few of the more common terms that you might hear in your search for the ideal host. I'll also offer some guidelines to help you make a knowledgeable decision about exactly which features you really need.

The Basics

Storage Space
This is the amount of space you lease on the host's server, and it's measured in megabytes. So how much do you need for your site? Well, on most Websites, one page with limited graphics and some text would take (on average) 5 kilobytes (Kb). If you have heavy graphics, photos, etc. your pages might require up to 30 Kb. Multiply the number of pages by the number of kilobytes to calculate a rough estimate of how much space your site currently needs. Also, don't forget to account for space that will be used by other things you'll store on the server. eBooks take up an enormous amount of space, as do Flash movies. They'll also be stored on the host's server, and need to be included in your estimate. Try to anticipate what you're likely to add to the site in the future, and include that in your total -- you'll want to allow some room for growth. A quick tip: just look at the file index on your computer to see the size of each page, ebook or Flash presentation.
Bandwidth
When files are transferred from the host's server to the site visitor, they use up bandwidth. When pages are clicked and displayed on the screen, when ebooks are downloaded, when shopping carts are put to use, bandwidth comes into play. The more "active" your site is -- the more there is for the site visitor to do -- the more bandwidth you'll need.
Email Accounts
There are two primary types of email that Web hosts offer. Web mail is email that can be accessed online using your browser. You pull it up and view it just as you would any other Website. POP3 email is that which can be used with email software (called an email client) such as Outlook Express, Outlook, Eudora or Pegasus. Where you need to be careful is in determining how you'll manage your email accounts, and what charges are involved with each alternative. Some hosts offer a limited number of POP3 addresses and then charge you for additional ones. Others may not offer a "control panel" for the maintenance of your email addresses, and might charge you to process any changes you need to make.

The Extras

Now let's consider a few items that you'll probably have heard of, and see how they can help you run an online business smoothly.
Autoresponders
One additional service that will come in very handy is that of an autoresponder. This will allow you to send an automatic message to people who email you. You will find this service useful when you're on vacation, or when you want to reassure customers that their message has gotten through, without having to make a personal reply to this effect every time you receive an email.
FTP and Front Page
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. This is the protocol used to upload your Website to the host's server. Most Web design software includes an FTP application that incorporates Dreamweaver and Go Live. Note that Microsoft's Front Page does not include FTP. It also has some other special considerations that make it necessary for your host to specifically support Front Page, if that's the softare you use -- check with your potential host for more details.
SSL (Secure Socket Layer)
This is the process that allows the secure, encrypted transfer of data. Some confuse this with the acceptance of credit cards. Although most shopping carts and online merchant accounts use SSL, it does NOT mean that your host includes a merchant account with your hosting package. In addition to payment options, SSL can be used to collect sensitive data from your site visitors, to ensure that your emails are not intercepted online, and to provide a sense of security for your customers.

"There's More?!"

Yes! Choosing a Web host is a serious process. A few other questions to consider during this decision-making time revolve around the function of your site.

• Are you going to offer purchases online? If so, you'll need a shopping cart.
• Are you going to provide an ezine or newsletter? If so, it would be beneficial to find a host that offers list servers. If not, you can find a free one (which will include advertisements) or you'll have to pay for this service from another provider.
• Do you want to track your site visitors? That would be very wise! Be sure to view the types of traffic statistics the host offers. Unfortunately, some don't provide very detailed information. At a minimum you'll want to see the referring URL (where the visitor came from), the number of hits per month and the pages on your site that are receiving the most views.
• Think you'll have questions from time to time? Then it would be an excellent idea to find a host that offers 24/7/365 tech support via chat or telephone.

And last, but certainly not least, be very sure to check out the "up time" and security of the host. As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, if the host isn't dependable, your business will be out of business! It's imperative that your host has measures in place in case of crashes or outages. Likewise, you'll want a host that offers security for the information you'll be storing on his/her server. Find out about firewalls and other security precautions they've taken.

Knowledge is power! Knowing what to look for can save you a lot of money, time and aggravation. And it can keep your business IN business.