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There
are many products available to help you add e-commerce capability
to your site. Factors to consider in making your selection include:
- Cost
(purchase price, monthly costs, cost of hosting and support)
-
Features offered
- Support
provided
- Compatibility
with your back-end systems (inventory, shipping, AR/AP)
- Reliability
of the software and/or hosting
- Whether
the company is likely to stay in business and continue to
upgrade their product
Solutions
fit into two broad categories: those that are web-browser-based
and those that aren't. These categories are summarized below:
| Browser-based
software |
Standalone
software |
| Software
runs on the web and is managed by the company that offers
the software. |
Software
to design the site is installed on your computer and the
commerce engine is installed on your web server. |
| Monthly
fees ($20-300 or more), and often a per-transaction fee
too. The more features you get, and the more products
you sell, the higher your fee. |
Purchase
software up front ($200-1,000 or more). Might offer add-on
features for additional cost. |
| Examples:
Yahoo! Store, Earthlink’s TotalCommerce, ShopSite,
and MonsterCommerce. |
Miva
Merchant, CartIt, and EasyCart. At the high end ($1,000-1
million) are products like IBM’s WebSphere Commerce
and Microsoft’s Commerce Server. |
Advantages |
- Little
or no technical knowledge is required. The tool will
walk you through the process of creating a store one
screen at a time.
- Software
upgrades are done for you.
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- You
have complete control over the look and feel of your
site.
- Templates
are often provided to help you get started.
- Allows
you to upload data for many products at once.
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Disadvantages |
- There
is often little design flexibility. While you can
usually change colors and fonts, your store is likely
to look like others.
- Ongoing
monthly fees.
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- Knowledge
of computers and html is required.
- You
are responsible for purchasing and installing upgrades.
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