Get your business on the Net - advertising on the Internet - includes related articles on the experience of three small-business persons on the Internet

Home Office Computing, Feb, 1995 by Rosalind Resnick

Don't look now. The once-pristine Internet is fast becoming dotted with storefronts, shopping centers, and sprawling cybermalls. These days, merchants hawking books, bouquets, games, jewelry, CDs, concert tickets, even pizza, are setting up shop in hopes of wooing the global network's estimated 15 to 20 million potential consumers.

And why not? For less than $1,000 a year, a small business can set up a multimedia storefront on the Internet's World Wide Web (a hypermedia system that lets you point and click your way through text, graphics, sounds, and video) and reach customers worldwide for a fraction of the cost of leasing space in a real-world mall or a commercial online service such as Prodigy or CompuServe. On Compuserve, for example, merchants pay $20,000 a year plus 2 percent of sales to set up shop in the Compuserve Mall; a lease at a suburban mall, meanwhile, can easily run to hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.

The Internet offers plenty of cheaper options, too--such as the ability to blast out automated brochures (the electronic equivalent of fax-on-demand) to potential customers and put up a text-based catalog on a searchable database called a Gopher.

Of course, Internet commerce, like the Internet itself, still has some bugs to work out. For example, sending credit card numbers over the network is far from secure (its open architecture makes it easy prey for vandals), forcing many Internet merchants to resort to offline ordering strategies such as asking customers to send faxes and call toll-free order lines. It's estimated that fewer than 5 percent of those with Internet access have the software browser or direct, high-speed connection necessary to view the Web in all its multimedia splendor. The overwhelming majority of Internet users still connect with the giant network either solely through e-mail or through software that allows them to view only the text of Web documents, obscuring graphics and other features.

Yet another problem for Internet merchants is getting noticed. Unlike real-world shopping complexes that shoppers can see while they're driving down the highway, cybermalls are invisible to all but those who know the address of the Internet site or seek them out. As a result, some fledgling Internet merchants have been disappointed by the low "foot traffic" at their online shops. Others have been flamed (pummeled by hostile e-mail) for their efforts to publicize themselves on Internet's bulletin boards and discussion groups.

Although a slew of new products and technologies promises to fix these problems, Internet retailing has not yet reached its full potential. But the cost of setting up shop is so low and the size of the market so huge that some sort of online presence is certainly worth experimenting with.

Pick the right retail environment for your business. First, you must decide if your type of company could fly in cyberspace. In general, the companies that do best on the Internet are those selling technology-related products--computer books, software, CDs--that appeal to the techno-savvy crowd that hangs out there. But as Internet demographics widen, there is certainly room for more. Second, since Internet retail space runs the gamut from tiny boutiques to sprawling retail complexes called cybermalls, you must decide which type of outlet suits your business--and how much time and money you're willing to invest. The following are some o your options. (See "Space for Rent" for a sampling of cybermall rates and services.

* Automated e-mail. For many firms, a company mailbox, or mail reflector, that automatically zaps out a brochure and ordering instructions to anybody who requests one via e-mail may be sufficient. Typically, these mail reflectors sport an address such as info@yourcompany.com and allow you to reach anybody with e-mail access to the Internet, broadening your potential market to the entire Internet community. Often, a mail reflector is included in the price you pay for a commercial Internet account; expect to pay no more than $50 a month for your Internet access provider to set one up for you.

* Gopher menu. Companies wishing to go one step further and transact sales online may set up a storefront consisting of a single menu item on a Gopher (a searchable database that can be accessed via any Internet-connected computer) that lets potential customers read a blurb about your company and order a product. Since Gophers are text based, they're accessible by anyone with a dial-up shell account (as opposed to the high-speed connection necessary to surf the Web); the downside is that you can't display pictures of your products. A larger store may take up an entire Gopher server and allow shoppers to select from hundreds or thousands of books, magazines, CDs, software, or other items. One of the Internet's most popular Gopher-based shopping centers is The Electronic Newsstand, a virtual magazine rack that boasts more than 70,000 user accesses a day.

A storefront on a Gopher site can cost anywhere between $500 and $5,000 a year, depending on the quantity and complexity of the information stored there. For example, The Electronic Newsstand charges publishers an annual setup fee ranging from $1,000 to $5,000, depending on the circulation and frequency of the newspaper or magazine plus a percentage of their online subscription sales (usually about 10 percent). Renting space on a Gopher is not much different from leasing space in your local shopping mall--simply call (or e-mail) the cybermall operator whose posting you see on the Net and he will be glad to send you a contract specifying length and terms (generally by postal mail since e-mail contracts may or may not be legally binding). Gophers are typically managed either by cybermall operators (who run Web sites, too) or by Internet access providers; both can update and change the information you put online, generally for an additional fee if the changes are substantial.