Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
One of the first lessons of life is that there's no suchthing as free. Yet the Internet always seems to be on the verge ofmaking that rule as obsolete as a 300-baud modem. Here, after all,is where all sorts of stuff costs nothing beyond the usual$20-a-month access fee--zillions of Web pages crammed with text andgraphics, numberless discussion groups, blazingly fast searchengines, lifetime e-mail accounts, even inter-national telephonecalls.
But surely e-commerce capabilities cost something, right? Theydid until July, when Bigstep.com began offering to get masses ofsmall businesses on the Web for almost nothing. That includesdisplaying catalogs, taking orders, publishing customernewsletters, analyzing Web activity, building relationships and alot more that small businesses couldn't afford before.
Having seen the success Web-based community sites such asGeo-Cities and Xoom have had in hosting individuals' Web sites,Bigstep set out to apply essentially the same business model toe-commerce. "Big businesses were benefiting [from e-commerce]a great deal," says Andrew Beebe, 27, Bigstep's CEO andco-founder, "[but] there were a lot of people who were aboutto be left out."
This is no pre-fab electronic mall scheme, either. Each Bigstepmember gets to design, construct and maintain his or her own Website, with soft-ware residing on Bigstep's serversinteractively walking them through each step of the process. Andlater, when it's time to blast out a customer newsletter,Bigstep's server will provide a list of the customers whovisited the site and stats about what each one ordered or seemedinterested in.
Bigstep is out to make a profit itself, of course, and ithasn't wrung out every cost of doing business on the Web. Itplans to sell ads on its site--but not on members' individualpages--and charge for premium add-ons. "What werealized," says Beebe, "is that we would take a risk andplace our bets on small businesses. Why charge at the door ifeverybody's going to be successful? Those that succeed will beinterested in buying more services."
The company will process incoming orders at no charge, but tocollect credit-card payments, Bigstep members must establish theirown online merchant accounts. However, Bigstep has cut a deal withCard Service International that lets members maintain such accountsfor a mere $14.95 a month. And members who want to have their ownWeb addresses instead of being listed under Bigstep's umbrellamust pay the standard $70 registration fee, but Bigstep will handlethe registration at cost, with no markup for itself.
"Free" still may not be entirely free, but Bigstepseems to live up to its name in approaching that goal.
John W. Verity reported and edited for 23 years atElectronic News, Datamation and Business Week. Since1997, he has been freelancing from his Brooklyn, New York,home.
Service Industries
Do you know a type of company that's underserved by theNet?
If you think e-commerce is merely using the Web to sell morestuff to more people, you're only seeing part of the picture.Internet-based services are needed to enhance collaboration in aton of specific industries. And that creates opportunities for awhole new breed of business.
A good example is BidCom Inc., whose services help architects,contractors, suppliers and others in the construction business.Instead of exchanging faxes and phone calls to coordinateschedules, move documents and prepare forms, they can all useBidCom's Web site (http://www.bidcom.com) as a sharedlibrary, communications center and virtual office. When a deliveryof I-beams gets delayed, for instance, BidCom will notify allaffected parties who are signed up for the service by e-mail, faxor pager.
A company called Impresse (http://www.impresse.com), meanwhile,has created a similar setup to streamline document flow within thedigital printing industry. Another firm, Celarix (http://www.celarix.com), is helpingcompanies track all their ocean and ship-born freight shipmentsworldwide. Instill (http://www.instill.com) is automatingworkflows in the food-service industry, and Magnifi (http://www.magnifi.com) is helpingmarketing departments collaborate with ad agencies and otherpartners. And because these schemes are all Web-based,participation isn't costly, meaning even the smallestbusinesses are potential customers.
