Setting Up Shop
|
| Category |
Low-cost Off-the-shelf Products |
Higher-end Off-the-shelf Products |
Online Services |
| Examples |
QuickSite (quicksite.com); VersaCheck Web Commerce (mipsdla.com) |
Maestro Commerce Suite (bitsoftware.com); Net.Commerce Start (www.software.ibm
.com\commerce\
net.commerce) |
Yahoo! Shopping (store.yahoo.com); iCat (www.icat.com) |
| Cost |
Under $100 plus Web hosting fees, typically about $50 a month |
$2,000 to $5,000 plus Web hosting fees, typically about $50 a month |
$100 a month to list up to 100 items; $300 for up to 1,000 |
| Pros |
Quick and easy setup |
Sophisticated database can manage your inventory, set up cross-selling, run a search engine |
Simple to set up, yet feature-laden. Provides the best reports on customer activity |
| Cons |
Few sophisticated functions such as links to inventory database. You'll outgrow it quickly if E-sales take off |
Big up-front expense; too complex for rank beginners |
For finely tuned Web pages, you'll still need to use a Web creation tool such as Microsoft FrontPage |
| Who's It For? |
Computing newbies and others who want to test E-commerce waters |
Technologically comfortable users who aren't programmers |
One-stop shoppers |
