Articles & News About ISP's And The Internet

Effective methods of doing business online!

With all these dot com failures so rampant, you may question, is it still viable to consider an online venture? The truth is: while spectacular rise and fall of many dot com companies have been overly publicized, sales through Internet are still increasing by 20 – 25% each year. Even economic down turn of the recent years has not hampered this growth.

Consider this:

According to an annual study of Internet trends by marketing research firm Ipsos, almost two third of Internet users in the United States have by now purchased a product or service online. That's a dramatic increase from only 36 percents of respondents in 2000. Studies show that more than 35.5 million U.S. Internet users made shopping trips to web shops during the week ending November 3, 2002, which is roughly 14 million more than almost the same time period in 2001.

While the hype over the new economy is maybe over, one thing is for sure that Internet has revolutionized the way we do business and positioned itself as one of the biggest and most unique sales channels. Many companies, finally, started to realize that their very existence may get jeopardized if they are slow in integrating Internet to their business model.

But the question still remains - is there any effective method of doing business online?

Below I have outlined some components crucial to any online venture. While these might not be the only vital components of web based business, understanding them correctly will significantly improve your chance of doing online business effectively.

Business Plan

Business plans are like road maps. Imagine, you ended up in a unfamiliar town and you have to find an address without a map! How would you feel? Definitely, you would have been much better off with a map of the locality! The same thing goes for business plan. Though, many successful ventures may have been started without the benefit of a formal business plan, a good business plan improves your chances of success and help you avoid many mistakes.

A recent AT&T study of successful entrepreneurs shows that businesses are more successful if they have a written business plan than the ones which don't. With a written business plan you get a better picture of your planned venture. So, before starting you online venture, take some time and write down what are you planning to do.

Product or Service

If you are a brick and mortar company merely trying to expand sales of your products or services on the Internet your task is easier! You at least don't have to mull over what to sell. But, what an entrepreneur who decided to start a new venture should sell on the Internet?

Actually, you can sell virtually any product or service through the Internet. You may say, "Wait a second, you can't sell big ticket items over the net, right?" Wrong! The car and part industries alone forecast to generate US$ 274 billion in revenues from online trade by 2004. There are incidents of consumers buying corporate jets online!

If you are serious about starting an online business, finding a product or service that suits you should not be very difficult.

Knowledge base products like e-books, how-to-reports and hard to find information and data sell quite well on the Internet.

Drop-ship items are bountiful on the Internet.

Thanks to global reach of Internet finding manufacturer for any item that you plan to import to your country or export from your country became lot easier.

If you have expertise, online services similar to web design, travel arrangement etc. are also good sales.

Internet users are paying readily for various types of online contents. Global online content market will add up to 50 billion US$ in 2003. You can consider this too!

Website/ Web store

Since you customers take their decision, whether to do business with you or not based on what they see on your site, it is critical to have a professional-looking website with good related content.

You can choose your website according to your need from a vast range of choices. Starting from a completely free website you can shell out thousands of dollars for a decent e-commerce website. The choice is yours!

There are various quality portals that allow you to have products and services displayed on a single page web site for free. Many business to business portals provide with this kind of services. However, for real time transactions you will still need e-commerce web stores.

If you are not good at design or don't want to spend a fortune on you web store, you should think about getting an e-commerce stores from web enablers like Yahoo, Bigstep, etc.

For a nominal monthly fee you can have the facilities required to run a full fledged electronic storefront and build it yourselves from easy to use templates.

If you go for this type of services, compare and see who has most of the features for lesser price. Some business to business portals along with your e-business web store will furnish you with necessary features to carry out over the Internet many important parts of buy and sale processes.

Shopping carts

The integral part of e-commerce sites, which allows you to accept product purchase orders for multiple products or services, is called a shopping cart.

The term "Shopping Cart"is taken from real life shopping terminology to help users understand the actions available to them. Like in a supermarket a user can add products to shopping cart, remove products from the cart or adjust the quantity of the products as per requirement before checking out and making payments.

While looking for shopping carts for your e-commerce store, you should consider the following aspects of a powerful and functional shopping cart:

Access to the shopping cart should be clearly visible. There should be several entry points to the cart.

Add, remove and adjust quantity of the product features should be prominent on the cart page.

The item name should have a link to the description of the product.

There should be a way of saving items for future purchases.

Shipping and other costs should be clearly stated before the check out process starts.

Order forms should be simple and clear.

All payment options should be explained clearly.

Ordering process should be done through secure server. You know you are on a secure server when the URL of your browser indicates "https:". The s at the end of http stands for "secure".

Merchant Account

90 percents of all online retail sales take place through credit card transactions. According to industry statistics, the average credit card sale is $40 versus just $9 for the average cash sale. To offer the credit card payment option to your online clients, you need to set up a merchant account-a bank authorized account established by your company to receive the proceeds of credit card purchases.

Even if you already accept credit cards for your offline transactions, that may not be enough. Although, you can take many precautions to reduce online credit card frauds, credit card companies still consider Internet transactions to be riskier than offline transactions. That's why finding a right merchant account provider could be a little bit more complicated than you might think. Things could be even trickier if your business is located outside of the United States.

There are many middleman merchant account providers on the Internet. Do some comparison-shopping before you sign up with any of them as conditions that they offer vary significantly.

Although, it is definitely good to have a merchant account that does not mean you can't sell products or services without having one! There are numerous other payment options available on the Internet. Most popular of them are paypal, e-gold, e-bullion, etc.

If you would like to have an effective online business, remember that old values still count. Proper planning, uncompromising customer service, integrity, hard work and persistence eventually will make your business successful.

About The Author

Nowshade Kabir, Ph.D., is the founder, primary developer and present CEO, of Rusbiz.com, a global business to business e-commerce portal with feature like storefronts, aggregated catalog, e-marketplace, trade leads, internal messaging system supply chain solutions, etc. With a doctorate in Information Technology, Dr. Kabir has worked an advisor to government projects and has over 12 years experience in International Trade. An author of many B2B and business related articles; he publishes a bi-weekly E-zine for online business community. You can subscribe to his newsletter free of charge from http://www.rusbiz.com.

nowshade@rusbiz.com

Other Article Sites

findabook.com  moneycd.info  a-mortgage.info   about-lemon-laws.info  aboutstudentloans.info
all-about-publishing.info  auctions-articles.info  bestcollege-university.com  bestispconnection.com
biblefolder.com  blogger-website.com  books-used.info  brokers-guide.info  buywindows.info  cable-dsl.info
career-miner.com  carpel-tunnel.info  cashinaflash.info  cashloanreviews.info  casinobell.com  chat-house.info
clearmycredit.info  collegeloantips.info  crones.info  depression-articles.info   dirnic.net  dishguides.info
divers-below.com  expodog.info   financewizz.com  fire-insurance.info  getgood.info  handleit.net   it-idea.info
health-supplies.info  hosting-right.com  insidealert.com  insurance-facts.info  jobs-employment.info
justgood.info  lookgold.net   lowcost-travel.info  money-source.info  myhostzone.info  numisblog.com
peoplesearchfinder.info  pr-articles.info  realeas.com   refinancing-guides.info  spyware-remove.info
telelot.info  the-law.info   toppaid.info  travel-deals.info  travelcorrect.com  wedding-guide-site.com
your-blog.info  your-credit.info

Baycom Finalizes Acquisition of TheGlobalNet Broadband Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) Business
Company Continues Expansion to Deliver High-speed Wireless Internet and Future Wireless Services Throughout Wisconsin

Web Hosting Design: How To Profit From Free Or Paid Web Hosting Site
There are many ways that websites can use tools to profit from free or paid web hosting sites The optimal way to profit from free or paid web hosting is to buy a hosting script, or purchase a professional design from a company that specializes in web hosting and design a site that is going to attract visitors and ad revenue

Choosing a Web Hosting Provider from 40 Million Other Web Hosts - Pt1
Discover how to go about choosing a web hosting provider in ways that 99.5% of the advice on the Internet never mention.

Reseller Web Hosting: The Perfect Way To Start A Web Hosting Business
Hosting web sites on the internet can be a lucrative business venture. However trying to setup a web hosting company from scratch can be quite a bit of work and also quite a bit of money.

DSL Internet Service Providers (ISP)
If you are just going to opt for one of those free broadband schemes then be warned. Most of such schemes are either fraudsters or you will have to settle for disturbing advertisements, low bandwidth, and unreliable connection or in extreme cases you may also be asked to give out very personal information like your credit card numbers etc. And why would you do all this when you can simply get a very good deal from the many leading DSL service providers at a low cost and avail their special discounts and cheap deals.

Real -Time, On Demand Website Statistics Solution for Web Hosts, ISP's and Dedicated Servers
SurfStats Software today announced new versions of SurfStatsLive Reporting Server software. SurfStatsLive's plug-and-forget approach makes it an ideal Website Analytics and Statistics Solution for Web Hosts, ISP's and dedicated servers.

Web Hosting Services For Business And Personal Websites
You need to know how internet servers work. To maintain your web site you will need an 'Internet Host'. There are several types of Internet Hosting services out there. I will try to teach you about 'web hosting,' in this article. When creating a new web site you need to figure out where a good place to start is.

Web Hosting Service – What you Need to Know to Change Web Hosting Providers
When service at your web hosting company is lacking, or your web site grows in traffic so much that you outgrow your current account, you may find yourself needing to change hosting providers. It can be scary to think about everything you need to do.

WISP Directory of Wireless Internet Service Providers Now Online
Inventive Media, a consulting firm serving the needs of the Wireless Internet Service Provider industry, announced today the WISP Directory website (http://www.wispdirectory.com), the most comprehensive list of WISPs (Wireless Internet Service Providers) in the United States. Entries in the WISP Directory include zip codes serviced, customer ratings, independent reviews and WISP Technology used by each WISP. A coverage map showing the total area serviced by WISP operators will also be provided later in the first quarter of 2009. The directory currently has over 1700 verified WISP operators in the United States, and over 180 entries for WISP r...

Why Choose Dial Up ISP Services
Dial up ISP service is the cheapest choice of any of the ISPs and may be a good option for that family on a tight budget. The software upgrades have definitely increased the speed of dial up ISPs, but their speed is still slower than some other options.

New Review Website for Web Hosting Services Web-Hosting-Info.com Launched
Known for websites such as FaxCompare.com, PBXCompare.com and Email-Marketing-Options.com, Zilker Ventures launches its newest comparison and review website for web hosting services, Web-Hosting-Info.com.

Web Hosting Providers - Find A Newbie Friendly Web Site Host
If you're about to set up your first web site and are completely new to running a web site, a dependable web hosting plan with stellar customer service is an absolute must. You'll want to choose a web hosting provider that can be of assistance from the moment you choose one of their web hosting plans.

Good Web Hosting: Host Your Business Online
The first step toward participating in electronic commerce would be to design a professional, user-friendly website for your business. It can be a challenging, yet manageable task to create a website that accurately describes your services. Research web hosting services until you find one that is suitable to your needs. Selecting a good web hosting company and plan is crucial to the success of your entree into electronic commerce.

Web Design and Hosting - Free Web Hosting Perks That Will Perk Up Your Web Site
If you've got or are considering a web hosting account with PHP and mySQL support, you'll find a wealth of free programs and scripts to take advantage of their powerful combined capabilities.Web hosting providers, from free to pricey, have always included some free pre-installed scripts to their customers in the way of guest books, counters and calendars.