December 19, 2005

E-Commerce: It's So Simple. Anyone (Yep - ANYONE) Can Do It

Google has made it drop-dead easy for any small business to let their web sites be known to online searchers. There's now no excuse for even the smallest merchants to sell online. PayPal, eBay, Yahoo, Verisign and SO MANY OTHER VENDORS make it a snap to sell online.

PayPal is the easiest e-commerce solution to use, but it's PayPal status screams "you're a low training wheels business" to some.

The NY Times writes All of which leads to another phenomenon that could further threaten the dominance of the big players - simplified e-commerce software with the potential to lure hordes of hitherto reluctant merchants onto the Internet.

According to eBay, nearly 650,000 small businesses in the United States have an online presence, a sizable figure but a tiny fraction of the 7.5 million companies that the Kelsey Group estimates market most of their goods directly to consumers. Many of the holdouts have resisted the Web because they deem the transition to be too difficult, too expensive or both. But now, Yahoo Stores, ProStores from eBay, NetSuite and other companies that help businesses operate online hope to change the minds of the hesitant with software and services that are cheaper and easier to use.

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