- If you want to break away from rigid schedules, unappreciative bosses, and soul-sapping commutes, this book is for you. - 101 Internet Businesses You Can Start From Home starts by helping you look inward and define what’s important to you (e.g., time with family, flexible schedule, money, part time vs. - Each book comes with a password that enables you to enter the companion Web site. - companion Web site. - e-Business model selection and getting lots of visitors to your Web site.”. - “101 Internet Businesses You Can Start From Home is an excellent resource for anyone wanting to start an Internet-based business. - 101 Internet Businesses You Can Start From Home. - 101 Ways to Promote Your Web Site. - 101 Internet businesses you can start from home : how to choose and build your own successful e-business / Susan Sweeney. - Title: One hundred one Internet businesses you can start from home. - Title: One hundred and one Internet businesses you can start from home.. - Thanks to Maureen Welsman for all the help with this edition of 101 Inter- net Businesses You Can Start From Home.. - It’s amazing what can be done when you “know you can.”. - Your “Members Only” Web Site. - That’s why there is a companion Web site associated with this book. - On this site you will find updates to the book and other Web site promotion resources of interest. - When you purchased this book, you automatically became a member (in fact, that’s the only way to join), so you now have full privileges. - “Members Only” section of the companion Web site, go to the Maximum Press Web site located at www.maxpress.com and follow the links to the “101 Inter- net Businesses” area. - viii 101 Internet Businesses You Can Start From Home. - Internet Business—The Opportunity of Our Lifetime. - Community Events Web Site. - x 101 Internet Businesses You Can Start From Home. - Web Site Review. - xii 101 Internet Businesses You Can Start From Home. - It started with print, then radio, television, phone, and fax, and now all of us are operating in the fastest medium yet—the Inter- net. - The opportunity is there for you to create a dynamite business online if you do it right. - It’s not a matter of throwing a Web site together, putting it online, and having the world beat a path to your door. - You have to choose the right business, develop the right Web site for your target market, and build substan- tial traffic to your Web site. - No matter how small your business is, if you set it up correctly, you can compete with the big boys.. - Find out what’s really important to you, and then find a business that you can build that will help you achieve those objectives. - xiv 101 Internet Businesses You Can Start From Home. - The beauty of working online is that it’s sustainable without having to quit your regular job if you don’t want to. - The point is that you should allocate in your business plan how much time you are willing to spend on the venture, and then you can decide which online businesses fit with the time you are willing to invest.. - Not all online businesses guaran- tee complete mobility and staying home, but you can decide on these critical lifestyle options before choosing which specific online avenue to pursue. - If you already have a physical “bricks-and-mortar” business location, do you want to use the Web as a marketing outlet? There are many ways to run a successful online business. - The other option if you have an exist- ing bricks-and-mortar setup is to use the Web site as a responsive marketing force and information source for your business. - Re- search the investment you will have to put into the Web site. - Ask around to see how much people are spending on their online presence, and remember that you can grow gradually as funds and profits permit with an online business.. - Do you want employees, or are you looking for a business you can start and maintain on your own? If you are planning to have a staff to run your business, how many are you comfortable with? Employees are an added responsibility. - What do you know? What are you comfortable with? What do you enjoy? If you are going to be spending lots of hours in your new e-business, it might as well be doing something you enjoy.. - On the other hand, if you have an online business that intends to sell books and you want to become the next Amazon.com, you will require a full-blown, full-featured e-business system to compete with the Amazon.coms of the world. - 2 101 Internet Businesses You Can Start From Home. - If you are making the same gift purchases in an online bookstore, you ex- pect to be able to have them gift-wrapped and delivered to any address you desire. - It defeats the purpose somewhat if you have to pay to have the books delivered to your address, only to turn around and pay to ship them someplace else. - If you are purchasing the books as gifts, you want to have them gift-wrapped.. - Again, it defeats the purpose if you have to have the books sent to your address so that you can gift-wrap them and then reship.. - If you don’t provide what they want the way they want it, another vendor is just a click away.. - Not all possible features of an e-business site are applicable to every busi- ness, but if you intend to be competitive online, you must give your consumers what they are looking for. - Doing Business Online 3 An electronic storefront is the interface that a customer sees when purchasing goods on a Web site. - You can. - The ASP’s storefront solution can be integrated with your existing Web site.. - 4 101 Internet Businesses You Can Start From Home. - The information hosted on the ASP’s server can be modified at any time—you can add or remove products at your convenience, alter the layout, and so on.. - If you choose to use this approach, more technical knowledge of computers will be required and you will have to find an Internet service provider to host your electronic storefront.. - If you have a broad product line, a complex system with different prices for different customers, or volume discount levels, or if you want a high level of integration with your accounting, inventory, and sales systems, you may want to consider developing your own storefront. - If you don’t have the technical capa- bility in-house, you can outsource this activity to a firm capable of developing such a program for your business or hire an employee or team to handle the storefront development.. - If you decide to develop your own storefront software, you should ensure that everything is running smoothly before you launch the storefront into cy- berspace. - 6 101 Internet Businesses You Can Start From Home. - This software feature enables merchants to be notified via e-mail whenever a purchase is made on their Web site. - This feature is terrific if you use offline methods (e.g., the telephone) to authorize credit card purchases. - You can simply pull up the e-mail message on your screen and call in to receive an authorization number.. - By integrating the back end with your storefront, you can track inventory levels to (1) ensure that you don’t run out of a certain product or (2) notify customers that you are out of stock before they make a purchase. - You can find out information such as who bought a particular product, who is subscribed to a particular newsletter, the time a client has been added to your database, and so on. - The mail list application should be able to be fully integrated with your Web site and should provide good tracking and manage- ment reports. - Thumbnails also assist in optimiz- ing your site’s download time. - 8 101 Internet Businesses You Can Start From Home Customer E-mail Notification. - This feature enables you to automatically send your clients an e-mail directly after they purchase an item on your Web site. - The message will confirm that you have received their order, and you can also take the time to thank them for doing business with your company. - Autoresponders can be used for different purposes, and you can send an unlimited number of sequential messages. - This way you can ensure a great follow-up for future repeat sales. - By using this method you can offer classes with the lessons delivered by autoresponder e-mails once per week, as well as train your affiliates on up-and-coming news with your business. - If you have any problems with your storefront, you should be able to call and receive immediate assistance to remedy your prob- lem. - On your Web site you have a “Join Our Affiliates Program” link.. - Once they have the URLs, they must send their prospects to your site either through outbound e-mail or via links from their own Web site. - 10 101 Internet Businesses You Can Start From Home. - Before you can accept credit card payments online, you need to acquire an appropriate Internet merchant account. - You may be saying to yourself, “I already have a merchant account” if you currently operate a business. - They may ask you to provide details of how an actual transaction on your Web site will work.. - 12 101 Internet Businesses You Can Start From Home. - You can opt to use a third-party alternative, also known as an Internet payment service. - Addi- tional costs not discussed within each level of e-business include the design and hosting of your Web site as well as any costs associated with the promotion of your products or services.. - It con- sists of the ability to take orders or reservations through e-mail or via an online form on your Web site. - If you are a business looking to sell a variety of products with set prices online, this level of e-business will not be adequate for you. - This level of e-business is appropriate if you are selling products or services with a fixed price and inventory is not an issue.. - Your online business consists of two core functional areas—the front end and the back end. - 14 101 Internet Businesses You Can Start From Home. - You can tackle processing online payment for goods and services two ways on your site. - Using the services of a payment processing company is the other alternative to managing credit card transactions on your Web site—we covered this in depth earlier in this chapter. - A good example of a business that would use this level of e-business would be a software company that allows clients to download the software directly from its Web site. - More information on storefront options can be found in the Internet Marketing Resources section of my Web site at http://www.susansweeney.com/resources.html. - Total integration is exactly what it sounds like—the integration of your online business with all or some of your back-end systems. - 16 101 Internet Businesses You Can Start From Home. - The costs associated with operating a fully integrated Web site can be significant. - if you are booking a hotel room and require a non-smoking room with a king-size bed and an ocean view, the hotel’s store- front or reservation system has to be fully integrated with its inventory system to be able to book the specific type of room for you.. - If you know that certain customers enjoy a particular prod- uct brand, you can use this information to notify them when you carry a new product from that brand. - If you’re out of stock on a particular item, it is good customer service to place a “temporarily out of stock” message near the product in consideration. - If you can provide an esti- mated-availability message, that’s even better. - Amazon.com also allows customers to set up a user account so that upon return they simply log in using their user name and password—this makes using the site more efficient and convenient for the consumer. - If your business is a small start-up operation, if you develop and manage your own Web site, or if you have a limited budget for this project, you may want to start small and add e-business components as your business or your budget grows. - However, if you have a product or service that a lot of people want, the e-business system will pay for itself.
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