Product Description

Research your competition. Develop your idea and business plan. Find customers and expand your base. Build your home page. Setting up shop on the Internet is easier than you think. Are you ready to grab your piece of the trillion-dollar online marketplace? One week from now, you could be counting the click-throughs and collecting the orders on your own online storefront!

In your hands is a complete, start-to-finish, seven-day plan for taking your existing business online or opening up a successful new virtual store on the World Wide Web. Top Internet consultant Sherry Szydlik and high-tech writer Lamont Wood draw on more than a decade of online experience to spell out what works and what doesn’t on the Web to help you succeed where others have crashed and burned.

Taking you day by day through the steps of building a Web-based business, Szydlik and Wood help you plan your online store–analyzing the market for your services or products, sizing up the competition, and drafting a practical business plan. You’ll see how to:

• Outsource the technical functions–how to cheaply get your ECP (Electronic Commerce Provider) to handle everything from online credit card processing to electronic shopping carts
• Anticipate and handle the special demands of 24/7 service
• Understand taxes and the laws applying to online, interstate, and international sales
• Avoid common scams, credit card fraud, and deadly foul-ups
• Bring in customers–using online and offline advertising, banners, postings on search engines, e-mail promotions, affiliate programs, and other resources for building your customer base
• Retain customers–how to use "click trails" and other information to give better service and build long-term relationships with your customers
  

Packed with clear information, expert pointers, and real-life examples from e-trepreneurs who’ve been there and done it successfully, E-trepreneur’s "radically simple" seven-step plan gets your business on the Web and in the black . . . quickly, easily, and, best of all, sensibly.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1628503 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

From the Back Cover
Research your competition. Develop your idea and business plan. Find customers and expand your base. Build your home page. Setting up shop on the Internet is easier than you think. Are you ready to grab your piece of the trillion-dollar online marketplace? One week from now, you could be counting the click-throughs and collecting the orders on your own online storefront!

In your hands is a complete, start-to-finish, seven-day plan for taking your existing business online or opening up a successful new virtual store on the World Wide Web. Top Internet consultant Sherry Szydlik and high-tech writer Lamont Wood draw on more than a decade of online experience to spell out what works and what doesn’t on the Web to help you succeed where others have crashed and burned.

Taking you day by day through the steps of building a Web-based business, Szydlik and Wood help you plan your online store–analyzing the market for your services or products, sizing up the competition, and drafting a practical business plan. You’ll see how to:

• Outsource the technical functions–how to cheaply get your ECP (Electronic Commerce Provider) to handle everything from online credit card processing to electronic shopping carts
• Anticipate and handle the special demands of 24/7 service
• Understand taxes and the laws applying to online, interstate, and international sales
• Avoid common scams, credit card fraud, and deadly foul-ups
• Bring in customers–using online and offline advertising, banners, postings on search engines, e-mail promotions, affiliate programs, and other resources for building your customer base
• Retain customers–how to use "click trails" and other information to give better service and build long-term relationships with your customers
  

Packed with clear information, expert pointers, and real-life examples from e-trepreneurs who’ve been there and done it successfully, E-trepreneur’s "radically simple" seven-step plan gets your business on the Web and in the black . . . quickly, easily, and, best of all, sensibly.

About the Author
Sherry Szydlik is a veteran of the Internet industry and was involved with online technologies long before there was a World Wide Web. She has helped over two hundred business clients, from Fortune 500 companies to small start-ups, plan and implement successful online business strategies. Lamont Wood is a freelance writer in the high-tech field who has written six books and sold more than 400 bylined articles to Byte, Compute, Information Week, American Heritage, the Chicago Tribune, and other publications around the world. He is the coauthor of Net After Dark (Wiley).

Customer Reviews

Forget the title, this book is worth reading.
When I first came across this book I was turned of by its unnecessary title - The whole notion of building a "profitable internet store in 7 days" is insane in and of itself. The title aside though the book does cover in great detail different aspects of building a business plan with key examples for small and medium sized businesses. Whilst the early parts of the book may seem basic, coverage of areas such as finance, operations and in particular marketing are well detailed and efficiently summarized. Szydlik's background of working with over two hundred Fortune 500 companies makes this book well worth a read as a refresher or the perfect gift to someone who is looking to start their own business.

Some of the links are old, but good business advice
We have a small retail business in Vermont and I am no computer genius. This book was very helpful as we put together our first ecommerce site. Some of the links are outdated, but the business advice is especially good, and the book is well organized and easy to read. We are actually making money at our internet site!! I never would have thought.

Excellent Resource for the Beginner
This is an excellent resource for someone that is new to ecommerce. The book covers nearly every conceivable topic from writing a business plan to shipping your first order. It also contains contact information for additional resources.

The writing is clear and easy-to-understand which means it won't be difficult to implement.

The cover infers that it is possible to create a profitable internet store in 7 days. While I do not believe it is likely that your store will be profitable in 7 days, I do believe it is possible to establish a site in 7 days.

If you already have an ecommerce site then you will find this book to be too primary. However, if you are new to ecommerce then you definitely need this book.