Your Online Store

If you're in retail, you've got to be worried. The old rules regarding location, customer service and price soon won't apply anymore. How can your location matter when, in many cases, someone can open an Internet web site and sell to the world. Not only that, he can do it for less than you spend on your store, sell for less and give better customer service at the same time. If I were in retail, I'd make sure I had a web site just for insurance and to try out a few things.

There are a few qualifiers. Some things are just not going to sell well on the Internet. Fresh produce and freshly baked goods are going to stay local. I also have my doubts whether you're going to be able to supply new cars to the world from your web site. But for small, inexpensive, easily shipped items, the market is ready now.

Once you decide to proceed, you'll need a host for your web site and it should be one which offers secure servers for exchanging ordering and payment information. This will cost from US $40 per month up. Then you'll need a sophisticated web site. You can do this yourself but it will take a lot of time to learn - a professional will do it for $1,000 and up. Finally you'll need your promotional material - pictures of the products, write-ups etc. Altogether you will need to generate some business from this site because there is a significant investment in time and money.

To reduce this investment, try the Yahoo Store. I tested this system recently and I was very impressed. For US $100 per month the service is competitive with what you would pay to have a small site created and hosted. You will, however, save in time spent and will get a much higher level of service with a professional-looking site which processes customers and orders in a highly efficient and effective manner and keeps track of visitors and sales. Try the simple test drive to see whether the system suits your business. If it does, you'll be up and running much faster and with a lot less effort than any other way I know of.

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