??? The company is accustomed to manually processing mail orders, so manually processing
orders e-mailed by PayPal will not introduce many new problems.
??? The company doesn??™t want to invest all of its money in a massive e-commerce site only
to find that people actually prefer mail order after all! Or it might find that, after Phase I,
the site does exactly what it wants, and there??™s no point in expanding it further. Either
way, we hope that offering a lower initial cost gives our bid the edge (it might also mean
we can get away with a higher total price).
Because this company is already amail-order business, it probably already has amerchant
account and can process credit cards. Therefore, moving on to Phase III as soon as possible
would be best for this company, so it can benefit from the preferential card-processing rates.
Summary
In this chapter, we??™ve discussed the positive financial and customer service aspects of including
e-commerce in your business operation. In the real and sometimes hostile commercial world,
where it??™s important to focus on raising short-term revenue and minimizing risk, an e-commerce
site will help you by
??? Increasing your customer base
??? Persuading your customers to spend more
??? Lowering your fulfillment costs
We??™ve applied those principles to a three-phase plan that provides a deliverable, usable
site at each stage and continues to expand throughout this book.
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