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Selling Online: How to Become a Successful E-Commerce Merchant in Canada (A Book Review)

Over the last several months we have delved deeply into many of the challenges facing startup and established web businesses. All articles have had one thing in common - helping business identify and address day-to-day e-commerce issues. So, it's quite appropriate that we now review a resource that could, one day, be seen as the ultimate "how-to" guide for merchants ramping up to the information highway. The resource, hot off the presses, is Jim Carroll and Rick Broadhead's "Selling Online: How to Become a Successful E-Commerce Merchant in Canada".

Without a doubt, Selling Online is a most comprehensive book covering the "dos and don'ts" of establishing a web storefront.

The authors have done a tremendous job carefully doing what few web books have been able to do before it - achieve a relevant balance between overview and detail. The authors' combined experience, rare in the industry indeed, has allowed them to determine how much people actually need to know in order to accomplish the critical tasks of setting up a storefront. That is certainly no small challenge given the scope of the text. The authors have ambitiously covered many topic areas, each of which has spawned dozens, if not hundreds, of less insightful, less substantial books. Topics covered in Selling Online include the following:

- Options for building online stores - outlining the pros and cons of a wide range of low-cost, do-it-yourself template services as well as more expensive software solutions.

- Tips for building effective online stores - reviewing the elements of good web site design and addressing key issues such as customer privacy, shipping and pricing.

- Merchant accounts and online payment services - explaining the stages and intermediaries required to enable an online store to process transactions.

- Security issues and credit card fraud - explaining common security risks as well as actions that increase an online store's credibility in the eyes of potential customers.

- Marketing strategies and building customer loyalty - summarizing the most tried-and-tested methods used in promoting an online store along with techniques to help keep customers coming back.

Selling Online is also blessed by its use of friendly, almost casual language - probably based on the comprehension level of the average web site visitor. You really get the sense that you are being spoken to by a web-savvy professional who has the experience to help you make your web storefront a resounding success. Finally, Selling Online does something most similar web books don't even try to do: it encourages readers to set realistic expectations and use the Internet strategically instead of in reaction to current trends.

But despite all this resource has to offer, Selling Online reads like a technical textbook. Its flow is hindered by frequent repetition. And its somewhat formal format quickly creates a virtual Everest to climb. Ironically, the authors have, in talking about the web, neglected to integrate some of the features that make the web such a dynamic and interesting medium. So, rather than providing interesting (or any) graphics, the only non-text segments are snaps of web sites, most with text far too small even to serve as meaningful examples. The book also relies on referring sites rather than supplying some type of simulation software, or link with the authors' web site, to allow web-newbies risk-free and cost-free practice.

Despite its few shortcomings, Selling Online is an exceptional reference tool. Its lists of thoughtful questions and summaries are concise and insightful for merchants who are serious about establishing a web presence. The book effectively gathers and summarizes materials like no other book on the topic. However, because the book starts with the assumption that you need to be on the web, rather than assessing whether it is appropriate or not, this book is not for someone thinking about getting on to the Internet.

Selling Online: How to Develop a Successful E-Commerce Business in Canada by Rick Broadhead and Jim Carroll (CDG Books Canada Inc., 1999). ISBN: 0771576439

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