E-tail therapy: if you're getting sick of the same old business ideas, then it's time to go online. The robust e-commerce market is hotter than ever, and it just may be the cure for what ails you

Entrepreneur, Jan, 2005 by Heather Clancy

For sellers, PayPal also offers a number of benefits. It can be used in transactions that require recurring fees. Or it could prove useful if your customer demographic, such as teenagers or college students, typically doesn't have a credit card.

Exclusive research commissioned by PayPal in summer 2004 found e-commerce businesses that set up shop in cyberspace within the last three years were more likely to offer PayPal as a payment alternative. The research, conducted by Ipsos-Insight on behalf of PayPal, also compared the perceptions of PayPal merchants with those that use other methods for completing transactions. In particular, PayPal sellers were more likely than their counterparts to believe their transaction methods allowed them to receive payments quickly and easily.

Historically, PayPal has been used on eBay and by smaller merchants. Ipsos-lnsight's research found that the majority of respondents that use PayPal as their transaction method generate less than $1 million in annual revenue. However, PayPal is being adopted more broadly, as evidenced by electronic payments provider CyberSource's recent decision to add PayPal as another option to the types of transactions it supports.

Construction Zone

NEED HELP BUILDING YOUR e-BUSINESS? CHECK OUT THESE SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS.

* STAY CURRENT. StoreSense from Kurant (www.store sense.com), offered through internet hosting companies, integrates with eBay, Federal Express, Intuit QuickBooks and UPS services, and supports payment options including PayPal. It links with online shopping search engines such as BizRate, Froogle and Shopping.com. StoreSense starts at $9-95 per month, depending on the service provider you pick.

* DON'T BE SCARED. Monster Commerce (www.monstet commerce.com) is a single-source provider of storefront hosting services. A basic store that lists up to 5,000 products and handles 300 visitors per day is priced at $79-95, after setup fee. Like StoreSense, the software integrates with other small-business software applications and commonly used business services. It also offers features like free tax calculation and reporting.

* FIND A BIG BROTHER. If you'd like to offload as much of the back-end work as possible, you may want to hitch your star to one of three e-commerce giants that has initiated programs to accommodate smaller businesses: Amazon.com, which extends the idea into services like gift registries; eBay, which lets entrepreneurs offer products at auction or for fixed prices; and Yahoo! Merchant Solutions, which claims to handle 1 in 8 online stores.

HEATHER CLANCY, editor of technology newsweekly CRN, has been covering the industry for 15 years. She can be reached at hclancy@cmp.com.