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We've assembled some articles and opinion pieces that should help you find your way though the electonic commerce maze to get the piece of cheese we hear is at the end.

In This Section

• Building Electronic Commerce Sites
• Spotlight on UK e-commerce
• E-commerce Software
• Ecommerce Environment
• Archive

Related Sections

• Web Site Promotion and Search Engines
• Business, Advertising and Marketing

Building Electronic Commerce Sites

• Building a Simple Ecommerce Web Site
  You don't need to spend millions to build an ecommerce Web site. There are viable do-it-yourself alternatives at hand. These are cost effective and require little technical expertise.
  
  
• Tune Your Ecommerce Site for the Rush
  Christmas Rush, Easter Rush, Summer Rush or a bit of brisk business next Friday. It doesn't matter when, the principles are the same. Your servers and bandwidth have to be big enough. Your systems have to be solid.
  
  
• Is SSL dead?
  Most security experts have been aware of problems with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), but they haven't been exploited extensively. Chances are they will be, though.

• Adding A Dealer Locator To Your Site
  Many large corporate Web sites have a "dealer locator" feature that lets a user enter a zip code and get a list of the closest locations to them. It turns out to be both cheap and easy to do.
  
  

• Hey wait! You didn't pay for that!
  There's a dirty little secret about shopping carts: <whisper> most shopping carts are abandoned full of merchandise before they ever get to the checkout counter!</whisper> Find out how to reduce your abandonment rate.
  

• Ecommerce Tutorial
  A detailed, three-part tutorial about how to set up a simple ecommerce Web site.
  
  
• Ecommerce on a Budget
  A simple, dependable, and inexpensive ecommerce solution for small businesses is proposed.
  
  
• Getting a Credit Card Merchant Account
  Guides to getting set up to accept credit cards on your Web site.

Spotlight on UK e-commerce

• E-commerce in the UK
  Multimillion pound savings are emerging from use of the Web in the UK. Investment bank Schroders are looking to cut over one million pounds from their annual buying costs. However, it's not all a smooth ride, as Freeserve will confirm.
  
  
• Do the banks hold back E-commerce in the UK?
  In the UK, doing business on the Internet is in some ways still a frontier-town activity. The worst of the outlaws in this game of Cowboys and Indians are the UK banks and credit card companies.
  
  

E-commerce Software

• Shopping Cart Programs Compared
  Need a shopping cart? Here's an overview of your options, from homegrown JavaScript to easy-to-implement turnkey solutions for merchants.
  
  
• NetObjects Authoring Server Suite 3.0
  NetObjects is shooting to alleviate the bottleneck created when Webmasters are forced to do all the work of developing and deploying Web content to Internet and Intranet sites.
  
  
• EDI as the Backbone of Electronic Commerce
  Large and medium-sized companies have been doing business with each other electronically for years via Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).
  
  
• Toolkits for a Distributed, Agent-Based Web Commerce System
  This is an 8-part series. As information on the Internet becomes more dynamic and heterogeneous, 'software agents' have been touted as the new building blocks for a new Internet structure.
  
  

Ecommerce Environment

• Why The Web Still Isn't Ready For Consumers
  Despite early projections, consumers have not been overwhelming e-retailers with business. The questions we need to ask ourselves are why, and is there anything positive we can do to improve the situation?
  
  
• Reducing Online Credit Card Fraud
  Credit card company figures show that 90 per cent of consumers are reimbursed when their cards are used fraudulently, while 75 per cent of online retailers have to eat the cost when they're the victims of credit card fraud.
  
  
• Gambling Online And Offshore
  Online betting and gaming revenues are predicted to reach $10 billion by 2002. Interactive betting services are looking to attract a new audience - the middle classes and women.
  

• Of course the Internet will be taxed.
  Governments may find themselves losing tax income because of e-commerce. They won't like it.
  

• Dotcom Bubble - "The Emperor Has No Clothes!"
  Expect valuations in ecommerce companies and other consumer business to go down even further. Somebody has noticed the Emperor is nude and the stock market and venture capitalists are no longer prepared to pay for his wardrobe.

• You Paid How Much For That Domain Name?
  The domain name Business.com was recently sold for a staggering $8 million. If you've got a domain name to sell, or you'd like to buy one, where on the Internet should you start looking, and how much will it be worth?

• Electronic Commerce By Frank Griffel, Tuan Tu, Winfreid Lamersdorf (editors)
  Book review.

• Web Commerce Cookbook by Gordon McComb
  Book review. Explains how to set up sites to sell either tangible goods, or content. Includes a wealth of useful CGI scripts and HTML templates.

• Internet Commerce by Andrew Dahl and Leslie Lesnick
  This is also a pretty comprehensive guide.

• The Microsoft Merchant Server Book by Barry S. Wadman, Brad Miser and Marta Partington
  A very thorough explanation of MS Merchant Serve.

• Frontiers of Electronic Commerce by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B. Whinston
  This textbook covers credit card systems, EDI, electronic cash systems, security, and much more.

• Electronic Commerce - A Manager's Guide by Ravi Kalakota and Andrew B. Whinston

• Build A World Wide Web Commerce Center by net.Genesis Corporation