The Internet is truly the New Frontier. And just where it all will go is mostly unknown. What is clear is that more and more business will occur on the WWW.

Sooner or later, everyone doing business on line runs the risk of being is confronted with the realization that it just isn't working.

This why it is so important to be clear about you can realistically expect to get back from what you put into the web. For the small and medium sized business establishing a presence on the web is the first order of business. This means a web site with a domain name. A place to show your products and services where web travelers can find you and contact you. If you are expecting to throw up a web site and make a living selling things, I will suggest that, well this is the wave of the future, it's not quite that easy.

You have the best positions in all the on line Web Directories and Internet Search Engines.  You have spent the family fortune on banner advertising. 
It just isn't working the way you had expected.

To be brutally frank, it cost more than it should have cost, and it brought less business than you were led to expect.
It just isn't working.

So netrepreneurs are drawn to consider the merits of bulk mail, aka Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail, aka UCEs, aka SPAM.

Somewhere from the hidden recesses of your mind, way back B.I. (Before Internet), you remember reading about getting a response of between one and four percent from unsolicited mailings. Daily you receive advertisements from people with funny return E-mail addresses that don't work, and who always operate from suites and apartments, who offer to send your E-mail to millions.  Maybe some does get sent, and maybe you get between 0.004 and 0.01 percent non-negative response. And once again it cost more than it should have and it brought much less business than you were led to expect.
It just isn't working.

And then, before you know it, you've paid your left arm and left leg for some expensive software that claims to let you send unlimited E-mails without upsetting your Internet Service Provider.  You pay an extra $39 for a CDROM of millions of E-mail addresses of people described as "opportunity seekers".  And then, just three hours after you started using all these new wonders you suddenly find yourself without any Internet access at all... 

• Your ISP has terminated your Internet access account; 
• Your web pages and news group postings have mysteriously disappeared;
• Your free lifetime E-mail accounts at Juno, HotMail and Yahoo don't work anymore and you wonder if this is an omen;
• Thirty-seven residents of Washington State are each suing you for $200;
• AOL's lawyers invite you to a meeting;
• Your E-mail In-Tray still contains several messages talking about "black holes" and which sound generally quite threatening;
• Your expensive toll free 800 numbers are ringing off the hook and every time you answer it there is just music.  The callers seem to take a long time to hang up;
• You have run out of fax paper;
• Mysterious packages the size and weight of house bricks are being delivered by air express, freight collect;
• The Federal Agents who call say something about "Felony" and "Theft of computer services";
• Your significant other seems much more distant than you remembered, and keeps asking about all the extra money you were going to make, and "Will it start soon?";
• Life has become generally miserable.

Once again... 
"It cost more than it should have cost and it brought in almost no business."
SPAM just isn't working.

The Internet Bytes - Big Time! 

Or does it?

Is it the Internet or your perception of the current location of the fabled pot of GOLD?
Big corporations can go spend lots of money advertising. They can take a loss on the Internet because they know that in the long run the WWW will pay off.
And yes some smaller corporations are doing very nicely and thank you very much.
The vast majority is to be located somewhere in between.
Those that survive are those who change and grow with the WWW.
To due well, will require growing with (or just ahead of) the web.

So do you want to sell on line first or start by doing email ordering, secure online transactions or … the list goes on and on. I will suggest you start with a web site showing what you have and how to contact you. When the level of response justifies it, add the on line ordering.

In business it's been said that the 3 most important things are location, Location and LOCATION. Start with the search engines. If people can find you and what you offer has a real buyer base, they will find you.
Understand that well that sounds simple, it takes time!

When you enter the WWW,
persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.