Making the Web Work
Erin Daly
Consumers spent an estimated $108.7 billion in e-commerce in 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and while this number may seem large, there is plenty of room for growth. In 2006, e-commerce sales accounted for only 2.8 percent of total retail sales, up from 1.1 percent in 2000.

With such strong growth and even stronger potential, Internet businesses are an attractive option. But guidelines shift when you enter the Web.

Content and product Web sites are the two main types of online businesses. A content Web site provides information about a topic, and its profits come from advertising. A product Web site earns revenue through the sale of goods.

Southwest Florida businesswoman Cindy Brown launched content site www.i-gocity.com, an online guide to cities and towns, last November. She got the idea from working on Web sites dedicated to individual neighborhoods, such as Three Oaks in Estero and Golden Gate Estates in Collier County.

"It basically started as a little bit of a joke: ‘Why stop here? We should do this for the city. Why stop with the city? We should do this nationally.’ And the next thing, the words actually turned into a plan," Brown says.

I-Go City’s revenues come solely from the advertisements on the Web site, which currently has about 45 local and national ads. Brown would like to see the number more than quadruple.

One costly mistake the corporation’s four-member board made was to change the Web site after it had been partially designed. The initial budget for launching the site was $25,000, but it ended up costing almost $125,000 because of the changes. "When you are putting your thoughts down, really expand on what you are talking about. For example, you cannot stop at, ‘I would like a calendar on our Web site.’ You have to tell them exactly what you expect that calendar to be able to do," she says. "If you want somebody to be able to post to it, then that’s additional programming."

Starting a business with the Web calls for many of the same preparations as any other business: create a business plan, figure your expenses and do some market research, says Lisa Sparks, a business analyst at Florida Gulf Coast University’s Small Business Development Center. For a product site, eBay’s Marketplace Research offers valuable information. "EBay is a really good canary in the mine for a business as far as what’s selling and what’s not," she says.

Some legal considerations when starting an Internet business are different from those of a storefront business. Depending on the type of business, an Internet enterprise should consider having disclaimers regarding its products or services on its Web site, as well as information about the business’s privacy policy. A security measure such as SSL can help protect customer privacy. "There should be a statement about privacy which would indicate that a company is attempting to safeguard all of the customer information and that the company will follow its stated privacy policy," says Jeanne Seewald, an attorney with Hahn Loeser & Parks LLP in Naples.

Because people often assume that Web content can be borrowed freely, she adds, "put copyright and trademark type notices that basically say that everything on the site are the copyright materials or the trademarks of the business and you [may not] use it without permission."

After designing and selling swimwear in brick-and-mortar stores for more than 30 years, LaBelle resident Valerie Thivierge launched www.mymallspace.com in February. The site, which sells her products, is designed to look like a virtual mall, complete with storefronts for the 240 participating retailers. Thivierge charges each tenant in the virtual mall an advertising fee, or "rent" as she calls it, so revenue is derived from advertising as well as product sales.

From the time she bought the domain name, it took eight months until the Web site was up and running. During this time, someone contacted Thivierge about purchasing the domain name from her, but Thivierge refused, telling the man she had big plans for the Web site. When she tried to trademark "My Mall Space" in April 2007, she discovered the man who had contacted her had trademarked the name. He also purchased the other MyMallSpace domain variations ending in .net, .info, and .org.

Those were two critical mistakes. First, she should have bought the other domain variations of MyMallSpace. Second, she should have filed for a trademark immediately after purchasing the domain name. "I didn’t realize that [trademarks and domain names] are really two separate issues, but I got a good education on that also," Thivierge says.