Small Biz View: Selling more, in your bathrobe
Life is getting simpler for armchair entrepreneurs. Online portals such as eBay and Yahoo! are creating new services and features that make it easier and cheaper for small businesses to operate online.
Merchants who already have an online presence are driving many of the improvements, says Hani Durzy of eBay. Last month, for instance, the huge auction site launched ProStores, which frees online businesses to develop their own websites instead of using one of eBay's templates. But they can still rely on eBay to handle secure checkouts and shopping carts. The service caters to eBay sellers also looking to market their wares through personal websites.
Dabblers might be interested in an inexpensive package that provides two customizable web storefronts with shopping cart features, for $6.95 per month plus a 1.5 percent commission on transactions. For more established businesses, there are sophisticated options with multiple templates and features like real-time credit-card processing, which max out at $249.95 a month plus a .5 percent transaction fee.
At Yahoo!, business owners can choose from more design options, so that websites look more individualized. New software makes it less cumbersome to revise the site or upload new info. And prospective entrepreneurs can simply reserve a domain name for future use, for $9.95–an offering that only used to be available as part of a more expensive bundle. As with other online services, costs are plummeting across the board. "You can get online for practically nothing," says Diane Schired, a counselor with Score, a free service for entrepreneurs.
Still, convenience and ease don't always translate into success. The proliferation of websites means online purveyors have to work harder to draw attention to their sites. Drawing up a specific online marketing budget is one step. And these days, Web offerings need to be carefully tailored.
"You just don't put information on a website," says Schired. "You have to have your own niche, to make people want to come to you."