Shopping Cart Software

Shopping Cart software allows customers to make selections (by checking a box, for example) as they move from page to page on your site. At the end of shopping a completed order form is generated and displayed to your online customers. They either proceed to check out or they have the opportunity to revise the order until it's complete.

Secure Financial Transactions

Transmitting credit card information over the Internet remains somewhat of a barrier to Internet sales. Many ISPs offer secure network services to prevent customers' financial information from being easily stolen. SECs or Secure Electronic Transactions allow users to send a credit card account number to a merchant in encrypted or scram­bled form. The merchant, using a special code, can electronically and automatically verify the validity of the card and the user with a bank.

International Sales

Web sites can be accessed from any place around the globe! Consequently, if you offer sales on the Internet, you'll need to determine how you will (or won't!) handle international sales. Shipping costs, customs forms, and monetary exchange rates are just a few issues to consider.

Third Party Service Providers

You might consider employing a third party that specializes in collecting, processing and shipping Internet orders for your product. This will allow you to focus on other key business issues while still taking advantage of additional sales generated by the Internet. Evaluate the costs and benefits of such a service.

Remember to Offer a Timely Response to an Order

The speed of the Internet creates the expectation that you will respond promptly to an online order. Make sure your business confirms orders via email in a timely fashion so you satisfy and keep customers!

Building Internet Sales Takes Time

Remember that it may take time to build Internet sales. To organize sales on the Internet requires good planning, a well-designed web site, careful evaluation your target market, and constant promotion of your web site. Some services and products may be more suitable for web sales than others. Customers will often visit your site several times before they make a purchase, so make your site interesting to visit and the one where it's easy to place orders!

TASKS

I. Answer the questions:

1. What are the methods of selling on the Internet? Describe them.

2. What do secure electronic transactions allow to the user?

3. What is necessary to organize sales on the Internet?

WORDS TO REMEMBER

revenue source	источник дохода
drop shipment	прямая поставка
cyberspace	киберпространство
intellectual property	интеллектуальная собственность
on demand	по запросу
gross profit	валовая прибыль
to warehouse items	хранить товары на складе
service business	предприятие сферы обслуживания
online tutoring	онлайновое обучение
to close the sale	совершить торговую сделку
shopping cart	тележка для магазинов самообслуживания (здесь программа для покупок в Интернете)
search engine	поисковая машина (в сети Internet - инструментальные средства, предназначенные для отсеивания информации, не относя­щейся к теме запроса)

TEXT D

CREATING A WEB-BASED BUSINESS

Since 1996 or so, everyone with access to the Internet has had the opportunity to create an additional revenue source with an online business. A web-based business can be very successful if you do it right. It's a way of making money without worrying about changing the economy, a boss or employees. All you need is a website, a merchant account, a bank account and your brain.

What you won't need

There are certain "no's" that you need to know to have a successful web-based business. To build the perfect online business you first need to think about the things you don't want or need before concerning yourself with what you need. Here are the things you won't need:

• NO Employees: Employees require you to pay them, manage them, and many times they need a place to work. To make things easier, stay away from employees, at least in the beginning.

• NO Inventory: You should not have an inventory that you need to store it somewhere and storage space can be expensive. Also, you'll end up with tons of shipping and packing demands. If you sell products, make sure your supplier does drop-shipping to most places in the world. Another form of product is electronic products such as music, software and e-books.

• NO Time: After your business has started, it should not require more than a few hours of your time to manage and maintain each month. The more you can automate things the better.

• NO Location: Your business should not reside anywhere other than in cyberspace. A website will allow you to make business anywhere in the world. Your web-based business is making you money and you can maintain it as long as you can get Internet access a few hours a month.

What to sell?

Now that you know what not to have, you have to focus on what you need for your web-based business. First, you need to know what you are going to sell. You have three choices - physical products, services, and intellectual property.

Physical products are food, clothing, appliances, homes and nearly everything that can be touched. As inventory is not necessary there are a couple of ways to handle products without inventory - you can use companies that make drop shipments or you can manufacture on demand. You can print and bind books, copy videocassettes, or burn a CD or DVD as orders come in. There are some people that are successfully selling print-on-demand books.

Drop-shipping is the key to selling products online without an inventory. Many manufacturers around the world will fulfill your customers' orders as they come in and put your label on the box before sending it out. You don't have as much gross profit per product, but you are saving money since you don't have to warehouse items, to maintain staff to package and ship products or fulfill any other demands. All you have to do is sell the product.

Service businesses can also use Internet. There are some industries that have been gaining some success such as online tutoring, various types of consulting, language translation, computer programming including web design, and several others.

To have an online-only service business, you will need to be able to fulfill the service from your location. One cannot wash customer's windows in France if he or she is in New York.

You need to be able to close the sale without a physical meeting. If you must meet face-to-face with a prospect to get her to buy, you won't have much freedom and you will need to pay for the travel. You wouldn't get too many clients if they had to pay for airfare just to do business with you.

Informational products are perfect for the Internet. This type of intellectual property can be writing, works of art, or software.

Creating the Perfect Web-based Business

Here are some quick steps for getting your online business up and running.

• Get your idea into an electronic format. " Research your competition.

• Find a place to host your company web site. Look for an inexpen­sive hosting company that has great service.

• Build an inexpensive, yet professional web site that is easy for your customers to use with a simple, but reliable shopping cart.

• Determine your payment system. Most likely you will want a merchant account to handle credit card payments or you can try out PayPal or ClickBank.

• Optimize your site for the search engines and be sure you are listed in all the major search engines.

• Use pay per click (PPC) search engines such as Overture and Google AdWords to build targeted traffic quickly.

Watch your bank account fill up.

TASKS