Easy and Hard Aspects of E-commerce

The things that are hard about e-commerce include:

• Getting traffic to come to your Web site
• Getting traffic to return to your Web site a second time
• Differentiating yourself from the competition
• Getting people to buy something from your Web site. Having people look at your site is one thing. Getting them to actually type in their credit card numbers is another.
• Integrating an e-commerce Web site with existing business data (if applicable)

There are so many Web sites, and it is so easy to create a new e-commerce web site, that getting people to look at yours is the biggest problem.

The things that are easy about e-commerce, especially for small businesses and individuals, include:

• Creating the web site
• Taking the orders
• Accepting payment

There are inumerable companies that will help you build and put up your electronic store. We'll discuss some options in the next section.