r e-business, you must determine exactly what you need to be competitive online. Most likely you will need some software to help you manage your products, your promotions, your customers, and their orders. You may also need some additional programs to handle the tax, shipping, and payment processing of your orders. 2 of 3A number of off the shelf solutions have grown over the past few years that give you these core features and allow you to plug-in other software modules to handle the complexities of taxation, the varieties of shipping options, and all the popular forms of payment. Solutions like Intershop’s ePages, iCat’s Lemonade Stand, or Yahoo’s Stores provide pre-fabricated storefronts that are ready. Just pick a design and fill in your products and you are ready for business.Other applications, like Intershop 3.0 and iCat Professional, allow you to change the pre-made storefronts to your own personal look and feel. These programs also allow you to extend the html setups to even more alter the features and behaviors of the storefront. The above solutions rely on other e-commerce software from CyberCash or OpenMarket for payment processing, Taxware for tax calculations, and Tandata for up to date shipping information. Building Your PlansAs soon as you are building your plans you should construct a requirements document. At this point it is a good time to get the attention of all the corporate departments involved. That way everyone’s input is in at the beginning, instead of too late. All ideas and potential conflicts are confronted early. It is hard to know which technology solution is good for you, until you have a detailed list of requirements that you can compare the solutions against. Therefore, you can choose an e-commerce platform that will deliver your goals to the online customers. You should also take the chance to plan for where the company is going to be in 2, 5, and 10 years. If yo...
