|
Should you take the cyber plunge?
Let's say you have a small business, and you want to expand your activities to places you can't physically be. You might be thinking about the internet. After all, some people have done quite well for themselves there--solid businesses (not the dot.com group of the nineties). Where do you begin?
[A note: this portion of our site will be updated with resources and links to sites that will help you get going here. For now, we'll just show you the areas that need to be looked into.]
A Web Site
To have a web presence you need a web site. You don't have to learn how to do it yourself, but if you want to, go out and buy yourself Microsoft's FrontPage software. If you enjoy learning computer stuff, you'll be able to teach yourself all about web publishing with this program. If you're in a hurry, and you want someone else to do it, find a good web designer (someone who will listen carefully to what you want, and to what you want your site to do). Just enter the words, "web designer," into a good search engine. We like www.google.com
If you're going to sell items on the internet, you'll need a shopping cart so that the items can be listed and ordered by visitors. You'll also need to set up a method of payment. Check out Yahoo Shopping or Pay Pal. Both of these offer neat ways to collect your money.
Your web designer should be able to tell you how to get people to your site, so that when they enter the word "widget" into their browsers (and you sell widgets), your name will come up. You can also advertise in search engines. This gives you an even more preferential place when the widget-searchers begin looking.
Where does IFS fit in?
Actually, we don't. At least not here. If you decide to take your own orders, pick, pack, and ship them, you don't need us.
However, if you reach a point where you'd like to look into just working on the idea side, or just making the widgets, and not have to handle the orders, the inventory, the shipping, and the customer headaches.... we're here.
Good Luck.
|
