"I think the key is in planning," says Delhaes, who created the site herself with Microsoft FrontPage software. Of the software, she says, "It's extremely user-friendly."
Many small Florida retailers are adding "virtual" storefronts on the web to complement their "real" locations in shopping centers or strip malls. Other businesses, like Delhaes' antique venture, operate solely in cyberspace. Ernst & Young's second annual Internet shopping survey, conducted in fall 1998, found that 76% of retailers nationwide either are selling online or planning to, up from 34% in 1997.
Businesses that want a presence on the web have many choices: hire a web designer or consultant, buy a web storefront software package or create the site using a browser. Web design firms and consultants charge anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 and sometimes considerably more. Off-the-shelf software packages range from $150 for Microsoft FrontPage to $5,000 for Intershop 3 Merchant Edition (www.intershop.com) or IBM's Net.Commerce Start 3.12 (www.ibm.com). Web-based programs such as Yahoo! Store (store.yahoo.com), Intel's iCat (www.icat.com) and Bigshop.com offer more limited design and organizational options, but at a bargain basement price (see "Quick, Easy and Cheap," page 50).
Creating a web storefront is one thing; attracting customers is another. "Most businesses don't have an online marketing plan," says Thomas Van Hare, president of Capstone Studio, the Boca Raton company that designed the popular drkoop.com website.
St. Petersburg's SeaVision USA began selling its color-corrected diving masks on the web (www.seavisionusa.com) three years ago to augment business generated from its established network of 500 dive shops and other distributors, which produce several million in annual sales. Last year the company began working with its Missouri-based webmaster on ways to bolster marketing and add features to the site. "Trying to get the proper search engines to come up with your product," is the primary challenge, says Alan Smith, SeaVision USA's national sales manager.
With that in mind, he analyzes a monthly report that lists all visitors and the path they took to find the site. Smith also is promoting the site more, listing the web address in print advertisements, business cards and packaging. Also, the company is working on adding credit cards.
To market the Chintz and Shelley Tea Room (www.chintzroom.com), Delhaes registered her site with 200 search engines, but focused her efforts on analyzing how the major ones (Infoseek, AltaVista, Excite, Lycos, Hot Bot and Yahoo!) look for sites. "Some search engines search according to all the words on the page, other sites go by key words," she says. Delhaes also added features designed to keep customers coming back, including a weekly chat room for customers and non-customers alike and a "want list," where customers can e-mail Delhaes their requests for china, silver and linen. She says, "I have an untold number of odds and ends that people are looking for."
Starting and Running Your Virtual Store
1. Choose a Host. You'll need to find a host for your virtual store or use a web storefront creation service, such as Yahoo! Store or iCat. When you find a host for your site, consider its reputation for reliability. Also, make sure it will support your web storefront software.
2. Arrange for Payment. To accept credit cards, you must open an Internet Merchant Account through your bank or one of the many services offered on the web. Fees vary, but most charge an application fee of $50 to $300 plus a minimum monthly fee (often $15 to $45 a month), a percentage of the transaction (typically 1.5% to 4%) and a charge of 10 cents to 40 cents per transaction.
3. Design Your Store. Stay focused on what you're selling. Thomas Van Hare, president of Boca Raton's award-winning Capstone Studio, advises creating a "visual difference" if lots of other sites are selling similar products. For London, England, flower retailer, LondonFlowerNet.com, Van Hare picked a black background with a striking yellow rose for the main page. He arranged flowers by occasion -- romantic gestures, new baby, sympathy, etc. And rather than a "shopping cart," there's a secure order form for each floral arrangement. Says Van Hare, "We flattened the ordering process from nine clicks to one."
4. Market, Market, Market. As with any retail venture, your ability to generate traffic is crucial. The first step is selecting your site's domain name. If the name of your business isn't well known, isn't available or doesn't describe what you do, pick a memorable name. To see if the name you want is available, check the "WhoIs" section of Network Solution's website (www.networksolutions.com). To apply for a name, register with one of the companies handling domain name registration -- Network Solutions, Register.com, CORE (www.corenic.org) or Melbourne IT (www.internetnamesww.com). The charge is $70 for two years.
Step two is to register with search engines. In addition to Yahoo!, Infoseek, AltaVista, Lycos and Excite, there are hundreds of other search engines, some for certain geographic areas or subjects. Services such as SubmitIt! and 123register charge $59 and $29.95, respectively, to register your site with multiple search engines.
Another marketing strategy used to promote websites is banner advertising. Banner exchange services such as MSN LinkExchange Banner Network (www.linkexchange.com), Banner Mania (www.banner-mania.com) and Ad Swap (www.adswap.com) let you earn credits toward free ads by showing other business' ads on your site. LinkExchange, for example, lets you display one ad free for every two ads you show on your site.
5.Track Your Business. Some web storefront software includes tools that let you track visitors, including what sites they came from, most popular pages, what key words they searched for and other analysis.
Quick, Easy and Cheap
The cheapest way to set up a cyber store is to do it yourself online. There's no software to buy, no HTML programming language to learn. If you have an Internet connection, a web browser such as Netscape or Internet Explorer, a scanner and perhaps a digital camera, building an e-commerce site is a snap.
STORE.YAHOO.COM
Yahoo! Store is one of the most popular services for setting up a small-business storefront. It lets an entrepreneur build and maintain a site for as little as $100 a month. Business owners use online forms to input information and photos can easily be uploaded. A "shopping cart" feature displays the sale price of products, including quantity discounts where applicable. Stores are listed in Yahoo! Shopping and every page of a Yahoo! Store is automatically submitted to major search engines. Store owners can track a variety of information on site visitors. For an additional cost, store owners may apply online for their proprietary domain name and a merchant account, which gives them the ability to accept Visa and MasterCard. There's no set-up cost for a Yahoo! Store and the monthly fee is $100 for up to 50 items for sale, $300 for 1,000 items.
WWW.ICAT.COM
Although similar in many ways to Yahoo! Store, iCat, recently acquired by Intel, has a lower profile. In April, though, the company announced a deal with Excite to jointly develop a new online shopping service. Prices start at $9.95 a month to sell up to 10 items and rise to $249.95 for 1,000 items. Separate marketing services, available for an additional cost, include search engine registration, domain name designation, banner advertising and a client e-mail service.
WWW.BIGSTEP.COM
A recent entry into the online web store development game, Bigstep.com is attracting lots of attention from small business owners for a key reason -- it's completely free. There's no monthly charge, no hosting fee, even no application fee for a merchant account. Bigstep.com makes its money from partners (who pitch their wares to retailers) and by offering extra services. It includes a unique, personalized web address and tracking reports.
Demographics: Portrait of the Internet Shopper
Small retailers face a unique challenge when they enter the "virtual" marketplace. Products that do well in department or specialty stores may or may not be a hit with web shoppers. Customers who shop 'til they drop at the local mall may not feel the same urge to buy when they're staring at a computer screen in a crowded home office.
Welcome to the brave new world of Internet retailing -- where some of the old rules of "bricks and mortar" retailing apply, but not all of them. The trick is figuring out how to pitch the right products to cyber-savvy customers.
For insights into what's selling and who's buying on the web, Ernst & Young surveyed more than 1,300 consumers, 41 retailers and 74 manufacturers across the U.S. last fall for its "Second Annual Internet Shopping Study."
Overall, online shopping still makes up only a small percent of retailing. The percentage of U.S. households participating in the study that bought products or services online rose to 10% in 1998, up from 7% in 1997. According to the Ernst & Young report, consumers who have Internet access but don't purchase online point to the fear of giving out credit card information and the need to see the product before buying it. Some additional findings from the study:
What They're Buying and Why
* Computer products such as PCs and software were the most popular category of items purchased online in both 1997 and 1998.
* Sales of books, clothing, recorded music and gifts all jumped dramatically in 1998. The percentage of households buying books on the web nearly doubled in 1998, growing to 39% from 20% in 1997. Purchases of "gifts" quadrupled from 5% in 1997 to 20% in 1998.
* A majority of online buyers, 52%, don't use the Internet to make spontaneous purchases. They make "considered" purchases for which there's been some thought and information gathering. Forty-two percent of online buyers know what brand they want and/or the merchant they want to buy from.
Affluent, well-educated, middle-age shoppers
* Male heads of household represent 49% of online shoppers, female heads of household 39%. Children over age 18 make 8% of purchases.
* Overall, 68% of online buyers were age 40 or older.
* Although the under-age-30 crowd comprised only 8% of households in the survey, they made 11% of purchases. On the other hand, consumers age 65 or older made up 21% of survey households, but made only 16% of online purchases.
* Internet shoppers are affluent. Forty-six percent of online shoppers have annual incomes of $50,000-plus, although that income level comprises only 17% of households surveyed. Households with annual incomes of $30,000 or less accounted for 31% of total households, but made only 18% of online purchases.
* Online shoppers are well-educated. Twenty-three percent of Internet buyers had post-graduate degrees, although only 12% of households surveyed fall in that category. Just 5% of Internet buyers had only a high school education or less, even though those consumers comprised 29% of households. Overall, 94% of online shoppers have had at least some college.
Full Speed Ahead!
Miami-based architectural firm Bruno-Elias & Associates focuses on ports and has landed some big projects.
When Bruno-Elias Ramos decided to start his own architectural firm, he knew it wouldn't be easy. But he says it was a good time to do it since he was young, had no children yet and didn't want to stay in a "stagnant position" working for someone else. So he left his job as director of architecture after five years at Post Buckley Schuh & Jernigan, and in 1992 Ramos launched Bruno-Elias & Associates in Miami. He started with just one assistant. Seven years later, the company has 40 employees and boasts annual revenues of some $4.5 million.
The company focuses on seaports and airports -- a promising niche Ramos recognized while he was still with Post Buckley. Working with Canaveral Port Authority, Ramos says he began to realize that many ports didn't have proper facilities: Old terminals, for example, often could not handle the large passenger loads of newer cruise ships and tended to be prosaic structures with few conveniences. When he opened his own shop, Ramos targeted ports and tried to sell them on more user-friendly facilities. One of his first clients: Canaveral Port Authority.
Ramos' company turned profitable in only its second year and has landed some big projects: It's designing new cruise terminals for Port Canaveral at a cost of $24 million, and $60 million in terminals for the Port of Miami. Also, the firm is redesigning Miami International Airport's food and beverage areas. Ramos expects his revenues to hit $6 million this year.
Born in Cuba and raised in Connecticut and Miami, Ramos, 38, earned his master's degree in architecture from the University of Florida. Going out on his own was rough in the beginning, he says, because he never stopped thinking about the company, meeting potential clients, drumming up business. Ramos says his experience in retail while in high school taught him that the best marketing tool is word-of-mouth referrals. He attends trade shows, speaks at port conventions and stays in touch with cruise and airport directors.
What's next? The company opened an office in West Palm Beach and longer term has plans to grow statewide. Ramos says he aims to have more than 200 employees and annual revenues of $25 million in five to seven years. To reach that goal, he wants to expand the scope of the firm. He says, "We're looking forward to designing ship interiors."