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

In September, Spry Inc., developer of Internet in a Box, rolled out Secure Encrypted Transactions (SET), a new software architecture that permits credit card transactions to be conducted safely via encryption through the Web's Mosaic graphical browser. Mosaic Communications Corp. has released Commerce Server, software for cybermalls that incorporates both encryption and authentication features. In November, Microsoft announced an agreement with Visa International to provide technology for secure electronic bank-card transactions across public and private computer networks.

Look ahead. What does the future hold for Internet retailing? One possibility is full-motion video, the sort of cable-based broadband application that would turn the Internet into a digitized Home Shopping Network where consumers could shop, play games, and interact with one another. Another is electronic currency, or digital cash. In May a Netherlands company called DigiCash rolled out an electronic cash system that lets Internet users pay for products and services directly from their bank accounts sans credit card numbers or checks. Though the DigiCash system is still in the testing phase, hundreds of customers and close to 20 online merchants around the world are already swapping play money for goods and services ranging from books to groceries. Soon, real money may be exchanged through the system.

"You can pay for access to a database, buy software or a newsletter by e-mail, play a computer game over the Net, receive $5 owed you by a friend, or just order a pizza," says David Chaum, DigiCash's managing director.

For now, however, Internet retailing is far more promise than reality--so don't terminate your mall lease or shutter your storefront just yet. At the same time, setting up shop on the Internet is a low-cost way to advertise your company's presence no matter what short-term sales results you get--and, if you don't try it, your competitors almost certainly will.

RELATED ARTICLE: His Web Page Delivers

Larry Grant Grant's Flower & Greenhouse Ann Arbor, MI

Larry Grant doesn't have an e-mail address, but his Michigan florist shop is doing business on the Internet just the same.

In December 1993, Grant, 55, was approached by local cybermall operator Jon Zeeff about setting up shop on Zeeff's Branch Mall. Though Grant didn't know much about the Internet, the florist's eyes lit up when Zeeff described the size of the market he'd be reaching.

"He told me there were 20 million users on the Internet," Grant recalls. "That's a lot of people."

These days, Grant's Flower gets two to five orders a day from its cybershop on the Internet's World Wide Web hypermedia system. The orders come from all over the world--especially on holidays. On Mother's Day, he says, he received 40 orders for bouquets through the Internet, compared with 45 from the international FTD netword. Although Internet orders are still a relatively small part of his total sale, their importance is growing steadily.

Interestingly, the way his ordering system is set up, he barely has to spend any time online. Zeeff compares the arrangement to advertising in a publication you don't read. "You don't have to be a subscriber to advertise," he notes.