E-tailing (less frequently: etailing) is the selling of retail goods on the Internet. Short for "electronic retailing," and used in Internet discussions as early as 1995, the term seems an almost inevitable addition to e-mail, e-business, and e-commerce. E-tailing is synonymous with business-to-consumer (B2C) transaction.

E-tailing began to work for some major corporations and smaller entrepreneurs as early as 1997 when Dell Computer reported multimillion dollar orders taken at its Web site. The success of Amazon.com hastened the arrival of Barnes and Noble's e-tail site. Concerns about secure order-taking receded. 1997 was also the year in which Auto-by-Tel reported that they had sold their millionth car over the Web, and CommerceNet/Nielsen Media reported that 10 million people had made purchases on the Web. Jupiter research predicted that e-tailing would grow to $37 billion by 2002.

E-tailing has resulted in the development of e-tailware -- software tools for creating online catalogs and managing the business connected with doing e-tailing. A new trend is the price comparison site that can quickly compare prices from a number of different e-tailers and link you to them.

E-tailware is software for creating online catalogs, ordering forms, credit checking, and similar services for Web sites that sell goods and services to consumers. A number of e-tailware products provide a complete range of support so that a company that already has a Web site can easily add e-tailing capability to the site.

Practical e-tailing

Launching an online store is easy, but setting up a successful shop is another story entirely. Offering appealing products on an attractive site in no way guarantees that your e-business will succeed. There are a large number of factors to consider when setting up shop on the Internet, factors that go far beyond the act of adding a shopping cart to an online catalog. All of the services that customers have come to take for granted in brick-and-mortar shops -- from processing credit cards to extended warranty service to accepting returns -- need to be duplicated in your online shop. But do you have the time or means to build in all this functionality yourself?

Obviously the first step in e-tailing is building your online store. Storefront services abound on the Internet for companies wishing to be the next Amazon.com -- or just the Web version of the corner hardware store. With some investigative work you can find a service that's right for you.

Smaller stores can choose from among a variety of services. Two free sites, Bigstep.com and freemerchant.com, shared our Editors' Choice award in last year's roundup of low-end Web storefronts ("Setting Up Shop Online"). If you'd prefer to get your store exposure through an online shopping mall, consider Yahoo! Stores or Amazon.com's zShops.

eCongo.com's FreeCommerce Builder is a solution targeted at ISPs, small-business associations, and other organizations interested in hosting a variety of storefronts under a common umbrella. As the name implies, this is a free service for all parties.

If you already have a site, Digital StoreFronts' Retail Pro is one of many services that allow you to commerce-enable your site without learning an array of programming skills. If all you need is a shopping cart added to your site, Digital StoreFront's InterCart provides that very service for $19.95 per month. The Retail Pro service ($49.95 per month) goes beyond the shopping cart: Such features as inventory control, search tools, sales support, and reporting validate the additional cost. Either solution provides SSL encryption for transactions and the ability to handle online credit card processing.

Larger stores require a more powerful solution that provides their customers with a richer experience and integrates with their existing systems. E-Business Suite, from Open Market, enables your storefront to work in tandem with your ERP system, finance software, existing databases, and other applications currently in use in your enterprise. The solution provides a rich set of modules, including personalization and content management. Blue Martini Software's Customer Interaction System 3.1 aims to let vendors provide highly dynamic experiences for their customers. Solutions like these routinely cost over a million dollars to implement.

Ship it
Getting the customer to place the order is only half the battle. Next you need to fulfill it. How you handle shipping is an important part of your commerce solution. Your good reputation as a merchant can hinge on this very process. The product must arrive on time.

Stamps.com is a popular tool for fulfilling online orders. Stamps.com lets you determine the best shipping option without consulting multiple shipping tables. Just answer some questions regarding the weight and size of the package, then enter insurance and handling information, and the Stamps.com engine does the work, returning the shipping costs for a variety of options and providers. You can print the shipping ticket, affix it to the package, and send the product to your customer.

Billing
Handling billing is a complicated matter. Any kind of credit card processing requires a merchant bank account. Your e-commerce host should provide you with assistance on setting up this account. But your business might have billing needs that go beyond one-time transactions.

ibill, one of the leaders in the billing industry, has a turnkey solution designed to integrate with your site seamlessly. Most of ibill's solutions also require a merchant account, with ibill providing the interface between your site and the merchant account. In case your customers require billing options other than credit cards, ibill also supports online checking and payment through its Web900 telephone billing service, which lets customers pay by calling a 900 number.

Warranty Service
Many items come with the option of extending their warranties. That procedure was easy enough to handle in your brick-and-mortar operation, but how do you do this online? Enter WarrantyNow. When you sign up for WarrantyNow, you gain the ability to provide warranty service and support directly through your shopping cart. Your customers have the ability to sign up for extended warranty service, and WarrantyNow provides and supports the warranty services with live 24-hour telephone support.

Returned Merchandise
As much as you might wish otherwise, you'll need a strategy for handling returns. As online sales continue to grow, returns of merchandise sold online will grow as well. Less than half of the returned merchandise can be resold as new, and the rest is liquidated. And be aware that as returns grow, so will the number of customers seeking to abuse your returns policy. Are you ready?

If you can't take care of returns adequately, check out The Return Exchange. Customers click the return button and are presented with a form to fill out. The Return Exchange checks its databases: If the customer has a history of abusing return policies, The Return Exchange flags the return for your consideration. Otherwise, the customer receives a return authorization number. The easy returns are solved automatically, leaving your team to handle only special problems. The customer can ship products to The Return Exchange's regional center, which will restore as many of the products as possible to resellable condition and add them back to stock. If a product can't be salvaged as new, the company will auction it for you.

Most of the familiar retail services are migrating to the Internet. Ultimately, service is what separates the stellar companies from the mediocre ones. By ensuring that your Web customers receive the same high level of service your walk-in customers expect, you go a long way toward succeeding at e-tail.