IF you still think setting up a shop on the Internet is expensive, think again. Shopping cart software solutions which can create webshops for you, such as ShopFactory, are an affordable solution to setting up shop on the Net.

If you can put in some work on a weekend or two, a few hundred dollars will do. That’s how much professional e-Commerce software software such as ShopFactory costs. And they make shop building point and click easy - no special skills required. Or buy a software packet and get in a student to do the work for you for a little extra.

Unless you have money to burn, or special circumstances, that’s all you should spend. The software will ensure your shop has the right look and functions to compete with the biggest stores on the Net. And the same e-commerce software which makes building the shop easy, also makes it easy to maintain and update it regularly.

Your biggest problem however comes after you build the shop. Now you need to let other people know that you have such a shop. So rather than spending thousands of Dollars on setting up shop, you should concentrate on promoting your shop to your customers.

Smart thinking will take your e-commerce venture far without big spending (I’ll tell you some tricks later).

Consider this: two small businesses have an e-commerce budget of $5000. One spends the money on having a designer create a shop for him. The other spends a few hundred dollars on professional software which takes care of the design, employs a student to do the work and the rest to promote the shop.

Who do you think will do better?

The answer is obvious. Unless you tell others about your shop, you may wait forever for orders.