You get what you pay for.


Spokesmen for three local companies that specialize in helping businesses to offer products and services on the Internet say thats often true in the expanding world of online sales.


Tom Bloom, director of marketing for Interlink Advantage, of Spokane, says businesses that want to use the Internet to promote product sales can design Web pages and put them online themselves. Or they can contract with search-engine providers or online auction sites such as eBay to sell their products. In addition, they can hire vendors, such as Interlink, to develop a customized Internet plan to meet their needs.


Prices go up accordingly, he says.


Some small businesses dont need the Internet, but it will benefit the majority of small businesses, Bloom says. The Internets presence wont go away. Its part of todays common business strategy and has almost become a necessity.


Interlink doesnt guarantee sales for its Internet customers, but provides an avenue for them to put their products in front of prospective buyers, he says. Once thats done, sales depend on the product and potential buyers.


Levi Dean, an account executive for BHW1 LLC, of Spokane, which focuses its energies on Internet-based advertising as well as on Web-site design, says the amount of time and money a business wants to invest often will dictate how well the final Web product reflects the desires and needs of the business.


The basic components of creating a Web site are similar no matter which approach a business takes to design such a presence, whether it builds a site itself, utilizes eBay or a search engines formula programs, or works with Internet designers to make a custom plan.


Static Web sites display data that dont change and are less expensive to build. In contrast, dynamic, or interactive, Web sites respond to viewers input and are more costly and more complex to design.


Josh Sulleton, an account manager for Spokane-based NetRiver Inc., who works in the companys Edmonds, Wash., office, says the process of building an Internet sales site starts with securing a domain name for the site and lining up a company to host it. It also involves developing a plan for the site that reflects a businesss goals and visions and, if the site is to handle monetary transactions through a dynamic Web site, setting up the necessary accounts and securities protection.


He says non-registered domain names for small businesses typically are leased for between $8 and $25 a year from domain registrar companies.


Businesses have the choice of posting their Web site on a server that has multiple clients, called shared hosting, or on a more expensive dedicated server. Those typically are used by large institutions, such as banks, that have high volumes of information on sites that must be tightly secured, says Bloom.


Interlink, which hosts between 700 and 800 companies on its shared server, will host a standard static site for $24.95 per month, and a standard dynamic site for $39.95 per month, he says. Those prices dont include design costs.


BHW1s Colin Manikoth, a site designer, likens the process of building a sales site to opening a store. He says one needs to find the right location, design the store, decide how to run it, stock it with items, then deal with customers and shipping.


A key step for any business wanting to enter the Internet sales market is to define exactly what it wants to sell and who its primary customers will be, says Dean.


Dean and Manikoth also suggest that business owners decide early how much they want to invest in their Web site. Those costs can be minimal if a business builds its own static Web site, about $16 a month plus a percentage of sales to access eBays software for a dynamic Web site for example, and more than that, at least initially, if a professional Web design company is employed.


Bloom says Interlink can build a multipage static Web site for a business with numerous links to a prospective buyers computer screen on which they can click their mouse to be sent to different screens and see more detailed information. Building those customized sites can cost between $1,500 and $2.500, he says.


Dean laughs when asked how much BHW1 charges to build a dynamic Web sales site.


Thats like asking how much it takes to buy a new car, he says, re-emphasizing the notion that you get what you pay for.


He says $10,000 would buy a nicely designed Web site thats fully interactive and meets a clients desires in interacting with a prospective customer.


Sulleton asserts that an even bigger expense than hiring a design company to build a Web site is getting ranked highly on large search engines such as those operated by Google and Yahoo. He says many Internet shoppers simply type in the name of a product theyre interested in buying on their favorite search engine, then shop from among names listed first by the search engine.


He says knowledgeable Web design companies can help a business rank higher on the list, but adds, When buying advertising from search engines, thats where the investment comes in. The sky is the limit, he says, adding that hes seen companies invest $10,000 a month for such advertising, and get much more than that in returns.


Meeting client needs


Anyone can make a store and sell products, Dean says, but taking it to the next step, to create recognition and a business identity, and to possibly build a shopping cart takes the process to another level of expertise.


A shopping cart is a software program that acts as an online stores catalog and ordering process.


Working on a computer and using software programmed to help build such Internet sales sites, the designer coordinates information about the business with supporting graphics. The designer also employs software tools to achieve the Web functions selected by the client, such as programming a shopping cart so an Internet customer can click on multiple items he or she wants to buy, then pay for them in one transaction. Once that design work is completed, the custom application is ready for use.


Many additional steps are required, however, for a dynamic Web site when the businesss intent is to sell items online in an interactive relationship with the customer, rather than only sharing information that the customer can follow up on with a phone call or e-mail, as with a static site. Dynamic Web sites present additional security, financial, and, in some cases, inventory-related challenges.


Businesses that decide to use eBay to sell their products answer questions electronically on the giant companys Web site and pay a fee, after which a new online store is linked into eBays huge sales network.


C. Mark McConnell, owner of LOL Consulting, of Spokane, says, I dont have an eBay store, but if I were to set one up, or my client wanted to get their feet wet and learn the ropes of Internet marketing and sales, Im not aware of a more cost-effective way to get started.


While security and banking issues are handled upfront with eBay, launching a non- eBay online store requires going to a bank and filling out paperwork to set up a merchant account. Merchant accounts enable Web sites and online stores to accept credit cards automatically.


Also, federal law requires merchants who want to conduct financial transactions over the Internet to contract with a gateway company that will act as a security intermediary for such transactions between the online merchant and the bank.


Businesses also need a software program known as a secure socket layer (SSL) to protect credit- card transactions, says Bloom. Such programs are incorporated into the shopping cart of a Web site and encrypt all data that are received or sent from the shopping-cart area to thwart potential theft of sensitive information. The selected gateway company has the ability to translate the encrypted code sent to it by the online store, communicate the transaction to the bank, and if the bank says the buyer has sufficient funds, see that the funds are transferred, he says. All that happens in a matter of seconds.


Contact Rocky Wilson at (509) 344-1264 or via e-mail at rockyw@spokanejournal.com.