Can you provide me with a list of some of the larger companies that
can provide ecommerce capabilities, so that I can easily sell some of
my company's logo items or merchandise online?  I am most interested
in only talking with those that are the "leaders" in this business.

---

Request for Question Clarification by websearcher-ga on 19 Sep 2002 10:17 PDT

Hi marty22:

I need a little more information from you before I can answer your
question correctly. Can you please answer the following questions:

1. Are you looking for a company that will create your *entire*
website for you *and* provide ecommerce capabilities like:

http://www.cdmweb.com/ecommerce/customized_ecommerce.html

Or are you looking for sites like Yahoo! Store

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/business_solutions/sell_online/yahoo_store.html

where you do much of the building work, and they just provide the
ecommerce/hosting bit?

Or are you looking for something different that the two options above?

2. Are you interested in servicing a particular geographic area (e.g.,
North America, Europe) or are you interested in worldwide
distribution?

3. How much are you willing to spend on the set-up for this store? 

4. What type of products do you sell?

Thanks!

websearcher-ga

---

Clarification of Question by marty22-ga on 19 Sep 2002 11:10 PDT

I am not looking for a customized solution, but rather one from a
company that hosts and administers online stores.  Some of the key
pieces that I think that these companies would offer would be perhaps
an up-to-date or realtime inventory list, email confirmations when
orders are placed, etc.

This site will be part of a larger website, so it would be nice to add
some navigational items that are the same throughout the larger site.

The cost is not important at the moment, I am just trying to identify
what companies are known for providing online stores specializing in
company logo items (shirts, golf balls, hats, coffee mugs, etc.)

Thank you for the quick response...please let me know if this is not
clear.

Hi marty22:

Thank you very much for your quick clarification. :-) 

Given your needs, an online "shopping portal" is definitely your best
bet. While they support a very wide (horizontal) choice of products,
they are believed (by the experts) to be the place where online
shoppers go now - and will go in the future. If this business, which
changes daily, has "leaders" they are it.

To back this up:

"IDC reports that, by 2003, 500 billion people will spend more than
$1.3 trillion online. For shopping portals, that means lots of
traffic, leading to generous ad and affiliate sales for sites that can
attract the most, and the right, eyeballs.
A shopping portal is a site offering a collection of gateways to
various online stores and services. According to Charlene Li of
Forrester Research, the biggest portals - Yahoo!, AOL and MSN - will
grab about 40 percent of the market in 2004. The rest of those ad
dollars ultimately will go toward vertical portals that specialize in
just one type of niche or content site."
From: http://www.entrepreneur.com/Magazines/MA_SegArticle/0,1539,278811----10-,00.html

As the above quote explains, the leading general portals (e.g.,
Yahoo!, MSN, etc.) are becoming the places where many people go to
shop online. These companies have huge drawing power and substantial
resources to back up their services.

There are many, many smaller "shopping-only" portals where you could
set up your online store, but I recommend against these for the
following reasons:

1. They don't have the "draw" that brings people to their site to
shop. You would be responsible for getting your customers there
yourself.

2. In this age of Internet volatility, they are more likely to "go
under" than the larger, general portals.

3. They tend to charge more for their services than the larger,
general portals.


I have dug up information for you on the following leading general
portals that provide the type of services you need:

Yahoo! Store
************

Quotes: 

"Yahoo! Store is an online storefront that you create. Build custom
pages to sell your products and manage your business with our
easy-to-use design tools. Your store is hosted on our secure
e-commerce servers so you can accept orders and process credit card
payments online anytime." From:
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/business_solutions/sell_online/yahoo_store.html#1

"The Store platform also provides access to an integrated collection
of tools and services that help you reach more customers, promote your
business, create special offers, and manage your inventory and your
business online."
From: http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/business_solutions/sell_online/yahoo_store.html#2

Pricing:

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/business_solutions/sell_online/yahoo_store/pricing.html

Where to Start:

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/business_solutions/sell_online/yahoo_store.html

Example Store:
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/swaves/


MSN Business
************

Quotes: 

"Sell your products on the Web. You get order management, credit-card
processing, and more - with Microsoft bCentral Commerce Manager."

"List your products on leading auction and shopping sites, such as
eBay, uBid, and MSNŽ Marketplace."

"Online tools help you track sales and pending orders. A centralized
online area makes it easy to manage and fulfill all orders."

"Custom reports show you the number of orders per buyer and sales
histories, as well as real-time tracking of current bids, and number
of items available."
From: http://www.bcentral.com/products/cm/default.asp

Pricing: 

http://www.bcentral.com/products/cm/default.asp (top of page)

Where To Start:

http://www.bcentral.com/products/cm/default.asp


excite Shopping
***************

Quotes:

"With the Excite Store Builder Pro, you create your own custom
storefront and sell your own products using our simple, but powerful,
set-up wizard and design tools."
From: http://www1.excite.com/home/shopping/store_builder_pro/spb_storebuilder/0,21566,,00.html?tid=30016&PG=global&SEC=shopnav

"This feature helps you keep track of your inventory levels for each
of your products. You can set up alerts to notify you when a product
is getting low on inventory, download your orders to your accounting
software, and bulk upload your product details."
From: http://www1.excite.com/home/shopping/store_builder_pro/spb_matrix/0,21567,,00.html?tid=30016&PG

Pricing: 

http://www1.excite.com/home/shopping/store_builder_pro/spb_matrix/0,21567,,00.html?tid=30016&PG
(top of page)

Where to Start: 

http://www1.excite.com/home/shopping/store_builder_pro/spb_storebuilder/0,21566,,00.html?tid=30016&PG=global&SEC=shopnav

Stores:

http://shopping.excite.com/index.html?PG=home&SEC=feat


While there are only three options above, I looked through many others
and really believe that these are your best bet.

I hope this answers your question. If you have need of further
clarification, please ask using the Clarification feature - before you
rate this answer.

Thanks. 

websearcher-ga

Search Strategy on Google: 

shopping portals
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=shopping+portals

major portals
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=major+portals

promotional logo products
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=promotional+logo+products

---

Request for Answer Clarification by marty22-ga on 19 Sep 2002 13:00 PDT

websearcher,
Thank you very much for this information, however, after reviewing
your data, I am still without the information I am looking for.

Let me provide a bit more info:

I am interested in this type of an online store for the purposes of
providing an internal (large) group of employees access to a site
(posted ONLY from our company intranet) to allow employees access to
ordering corporate logo items/merchandise.

Perhaps some of the organizations like Yahoo Store, MSN Business, etc.
can provide 'secure' portals like this, I just thought that there were
probably certain leaders in this industry that focused on
administering and maintaining these types of estores for this specific
purpose.

I hope that this helps further.  Thank you once again for any
additional information.

---

Clarification of Answer by websearcher-ga on 19 Sep 2002 13:42 PDT

Hi marty22: 
 
I obviously didn't correctly understand your original question (or
your first clarification). :-)
 
I have been unable to find any leaders in this industry (in fact, I'm
not sure what you want on its own IS an industry). Most secure stores
are in the b2b (business to business) realm and operate on supporting
transactions between multiple companies/suppliers/purchasers - not
just within a single company.
 
A couple of alternative ideas: 
 
1. Have you looked into whether your current intranet vendor can
support this concept of an employee store - perhaps with an add-on or
with a customization of your install? Often it is best to stay with
the software you are already using.
 
2. You are right in assuming that organizations like Yahoo!, MSN, and
Excite might be able to support these types of "secure" stores.
However, the amount of security they can provide might vary (and might
not fit what your security requirements are). One thought is that if
you set up a store with them but they DO NOT add your store to any of
their searching/browsing capabilities (i.e., keep your URL "private"),
then that might serve your needs. It wouldn't be "secure" in the
traditional sense - but who else would be able to find it other than
your employees? You could ask them if they would allow this.
 
Other than that - I'm afraid I'm stumped on this one. I apologize for
not asking for enough clarification to get your full intent before
answering this question. I honestly thought I understood what you
wanted after the first clarification. If this answer is
unsatisfactory, please rate it accordingly.
 
Thank you.  
 
websearcher-ga

Hi marty22:

I obviously didn't correctly understand your original question (or
your first clarification). :-)

I have been unable to find any leaders in this industry (in fact, I'm
not sure what you want on its own IS an industry). Most secure stores
are in the b2b (business to business) realm and operate on supporting
transactions between multiple companies/suppliers/purchasers - not
just within a single company.

A couple of alternative ideas:

1. Have you looked into whether your current intranet vendor can
support this concept of an employee store - perhaps with an add-on or
with a customization of your install? Often it is best to stay with
the software you are already using.

2. You are right in assuming that organizations like Yahoo!, MSN, and
Excite might be able to support these types of "secure" stores.
However, the amount of security they can provide might vary (and might
not fit what your security requirements are). One thought is that if
you set up a store with them but they DO NOT add your store to any of
their searching/browsing capabilities (i.e., keep your URL "private"),
then that might serve your needs. It wouldn't be "secure" in the
traditional sense - but who else would be able to find it other than
your employees? You could ask them if they would allow this.

Other than that - I'm afraid I'm stumped on this one. I apologize for
not asking for enough clarification to get your full intent before
answering this question. I honestly thought I understood what you
wanted after the first clarification. If this answer is
unsatisfactory, please rate it accordingly.

Thank you. 

websearcher-ga