Last week we looked at the process of setting up an Internet presence for your business. If you have a limited budget, cyberspace doesn't have to be out of your reach. With less than J$15,000, you can buy a web address, design your own website using templates, and be up and running in a short time.

After you've established a website to showcase your products and services, you should consider getting E-commerce capabilities to sell your offerings online. According to ecommerce.networksolutions.com, electronic commerce or E-commerce is a term for any type of business or commercial transaction that involves the transfer of information across the Internet.

E-commerce is becoming prevalent worldwide as the growth in Internet usage explodes. "In the near future the boundaries between 'conventional' and 'electronic' commerce will become increasingly blurred as more and more businesses move sections of their operations onto the Internet," the website concluded.

Most of us are familiar with E-commerce websites such as Amazon.com, the massive cyberspace shopping mall that allows you to purchase almost anything under the sun. But what exactly does it take to turn your basic website into an online sales outlet?

First, you would have to install shopping cart software on your site to allow persons to buy your products or services and track their purchases, and to help you to keep records of your customers' activities. You can buy a shopping cart program such as osCommerce, which gives you options to buy the entire web design, hosting, shopping cart and training in one package, or to simply add the shopping cart capabilities to your existing website.

Your next step would be to include a method to accept online payments from your customers. You may need to set up a merchant account that allows you to accept credit card payments through an online gateway, or you can stick to using PayPal, a free online payment service that allows individuals and businesses to transfer funds electronically.

Once you begin to accept online payments, you have to install Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology to protect your website and your customers from fraud. Sites with this feature usually have a little lock at the bottom of the page that ensures customers that their private information such as credit card numbers, addresses and ID numbers will be protected from unauthorised use.

Finally, once all the back-end features are in place to allow for online sales, you have to figure out how to drive traffic to your site (that's web-speak for attracting customers). You have to design a marketing strategy that will identify the right target market and promote your site in places where your potential customers already visit. As most people look in search engines like Google.com to find things online, you also need to try to get your site listed high up in the page rankings.

I realise that the process outlined above might prove rather intimidating for the average Jamaican businessperson to implement. The great news is that there is a company, right here in Jamaica, that can do all of the work involved in setting up and marketing an E-commerce site.

Unique Media Designs, with their website www.virtualmalljamaica.com, is the first Jamaican company to offer a complete E-commerce service for businesses. Their package includes domain name, web design, web hosting, email addresses, shopping cart, merchant payments, shipping options and inventory control, as well as customisable sales and traffic reports and training support.

Ronald Stephenson, CEO, explained that Virtual Mall Jamaica was established to give Jamaican businesses an opportunity to expand their markets locally and internationally, by having their own E-commerce sites. "We recognised the need for Jamaican companies to be more competitive in the global economy," Stephenson pointed out, "as they really cannot survive in the international marketplace without having an Internet presence."

Virtual Mall Jamaica uses an online storefront concept that allows people looking for Jamaican goods and services to find several companies in one location. Internet shoppers can go to this 'mall' and conveniently locate their desired products, make requests for more information, purchase the goods and have them delivered to them.

Having an online storefront brings many benefits to small operators. You can reduce marketing expenses through the shared advertising costs, and can eliminate some overhead costs such as utilities and rent that would be incurred in setting up physical outlets. You can also expand your target market to include persons outside of your geographical locations, as with various payment and delivery options, shoppers anywhere in Jamaica or around the world can purchase from you.

So if you want to increase your business revenue by finding more customers, why not look to cyberspace?

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