Option 1 Buy a ready-made system that closely matches your specifications.

    This approach will give you a standardized set of e-commerce features with a few additional business rules built in as a bonus (like the options on a new car). If your business needs closely match what the package offers, buy it! This will save you money and a good deal of time. If the system is lacking some of your prioritized features, however, you may want to think again. The solution may be a good fit right now, but will likely become obsolete as more and more features become necessary later on in development. Trying to add these new features may mean custom work and training in the software down the road. Be sure to budget for this ahead of time, if you're considering this option.

    Also count on shelling out additional bucks if you want to automate payments, tax, and shipping. You'll need to buy additional products and get them installed, configured, and integrated. Luckily, it's fairly easy to install plug-ins into most of these types of systems. Ready-made interfaces are often included for payment, tax, and shipping applications such as CyberCash, Verifone, Tandata, and others. But always be sure to confirm that your required programs are supported. Again, ranking your features beforehand will help you at this stage.

Option 2 Rent space at an E-Commerce ASP.

    These solutions are frequently inexpensive and include many common features. They're fast because the whole store is administered through the Web. You don't need to install any software; you just pick a look, configure some settings, and pour in your product information. Then you're ready to go: instant storefront.

    The downside is that these services may not support the features or look and feel that you want. They can shield you from having to deal with the complexities of installation and configuring, but that's because they only offer a couple of ways to do these things. That's great if there's a good match between what they provide and what you need, but otherwise, you'll end up frustrated and searching for a new solution before long.

Option 3 Build the system from scratch to your specifications.

    This approach will give you the exact solution you need but will require expertise, time, and a sizable budget to pull it off. The advantage is that you can build the features and functions you need to be unique and competitive in the marketplace. So if you want to offer discounts every second Tuesday of the month, you'll need to take this approach.

    There are a series of application engines out there to help you get these features, but you can create a commerce program in almost any programming language. Many early Web-based business interfaces were created in Perl, PHP, or C++. More recently, a lot of work has been done with Microsoft's Active Server Pagesand Macromedia's ColdFusion development environments.

    When taking this path, you'll need to design databases from scratch and then integrate tax, shipping, and payment processing software modules with the main application. ASP and ColdFusion have been designed to work with popular third-party solutions to help you streamline your transaction processing requirements, but be sure that you're comfortable developing applications on this level. If not, you can hire a professional e-commerce systems developer (like, ahem, eMergingMedia) to help get you up and running.