Specifications

Online Brochures
Nearly all the commercial Web sites in the early 1990s were simply an online brochure or sales
tool. This type of site is still the most common form of commercial Web site. Either as an ini-
tial foray onto the Web, or as a low-cost advertising exercise, this type of site makes sense for
many businesses.
A brochureware site can be anything from a business card rendered as a Web page to an exten-
sive collection of marketing information. In any case, the purpose of the site, and its financial
reason for existing, is to entice customers to make contact with your business.
This type of site does not generate any income directly, but can add to the revenue your busi-
ness receives via traditional means.
Developing a site like this presents few technical challenges. The issues faced are similar to
those in other marketing exercises. A few of the more common pitfalls with this type of site
include
• Failing to provide important information
• Poor presentation
• Not answering feedback generated by the site
• Allowing a site to age
• Not tracking the success of the site
Failing to Provide Important Information
What are visitors likely to be seeking when they visit your site? Depending on how much they
already know, they might want detailed product specifications, or they might just want very
basic information such as contact details.
Many Web sites provide no useful information, or miss crucial information. At the very least,
your site needs to tell visitors what you do, what geographical areas your business services,
and how to make contact.
Poor Presentation
“On the Internet, nobody knows you are a dog,” or so goes the old saying.
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In the same way
that small businesses, or dogs, can look larger and more impressive when they are using the
Internet, large businesses can look small, unprofessional, and unimpressive with a poor Web
site.
Running an E-commerce Site
C
HAPTER 12
12
RUNNING AN
E-COMMERCE SITE
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Of course, an “old saying” about the Internet cannot really be very old. This is the caption from a car-
toon by Peter Steiner originally published in the July 5, 1993 issue of The New Yorker.
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