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Ecommerce 101

Galofre.net Studios | June 24, 2008

Selling goods and services online is also called "ecommerce." Popular ecommerce Web sites include Amazon.com and eBay. Ecommerce is not the sole province of large companies, however; many small businesses have found considerable success selling on the Internet.

To sell online effectively, you need a Web site equipped with certain features not found on typical business web sites: a shopping cart, credit card processing capability, product catalog, etc. Some Web hosting and design firms offer Web site packages tailored for ecommerce use.

Why Sell Online?

If you already sell products and services offline, ecommerce can give you access to new customers, many of them in other states, even other countries. You can increase your revenue by opening up entirely new markets that would be difficult and costly to penetrate with a conventional bricks-and-mortar store.

If you plan to sell online only, you can create a thriving business with lower costs than many offline businesses. For example, you can run your online store out of your home instead of renting a retail space, and you can take orders 24/7 without hiring employees to staff your site around the clock.