Special Report: Internet Commerce is Like Planning a Wedding

When it comes to opening an Internet store, businesses have a big question right out of the gate – should I do it myself, or call in the experts?

Building an Internet store isn’t that much different than any other big task you may be faced with, like catering a wedding. There are a few advantages to doing it yourself, but the disadvantages far outweigh them.

For instance, what if you don’t have enough food or burn the main course? The same fate is unlikely to happen to your caterer, who has proven experience in creating delicious large-scale meals. By allowing the caterer to focus on what he does best, you can choose the venue, the decorations and the attire.

It’s the Same with Building an Internet Store

You can build it yourself, but the advantages of outsourcing the task can’t be ignored. You don’t have to worry if your store receives more visitors than anticipated or if some of the equipment fails. An outsourced Commerce Service Provider will focus on the back end – things like capturing orders, processing electronic coupons, calculating taxes and getting credit card authorization. On top of that, they will make sure you are up 24 hours a day 365 days a year.

Those who value hot profits more than cool technology will turn to a new breed of Commerce Service Providers. The best of this breed will allow complete flexibility and creativity on the front-end, where it belongs. They’ll support store sites built by anyone, using any tools or technology and hosted anywhere. Then they’ll provide full-featured, industrial strength order management and payment processing on the back-end, delivered as a service over the network.

Merchants Will Realize Three Huge Benefits

Cost savings. Because they don’t have to buy and maintain hardware and software and operate the system 21 shifts a week, they’ll have more functionality and better reliability for 90 percent less cost.

Rapid time-to-market. Because there is nothing to install or learn, they can turn a marketing site into a selling site in literally less than an hour.

Reduced risk. They won’t have to store credit cards on their site, and because they rely on experts who serve hundreds of merchants, they won’t have to worry about their technology choice becoming obsolete, their site not working properly, their developer getting a better offer or their success exceeding the scale of their installation.

The Bottom Line

In the end, it comes down to focusing your attention on winning business instead of worrying about crashing servers. It’s kind of like greeting your guests instead of cooking the crab puffs.