Unlike many other "information highway" opportunities, the Internet is here and ready for your product today. A part of the Net, known as "the Web" is the focus for much, though not all, commercial activity on the Net.

The Web is actually called the World Wide Web (WWW). Here is where graphical pages with pictures can easily be accessed and viewed by Net surfers using Mosaic or similar software products. Mosaic is a browser, literally allowing the customer to browse a shop on the Net. Not all Net surfers feature Mosaic or a service that permits its successful use. Yet more and more such providers are heading towards full capability.

Many shops and malls have set up sites on the Web. The first thing you see when entering a store or mall is its Home Page, which gives you launching points for further activity. In addition, much text is connected electronically to other text and options- so that you can choose to visit other related sites or pages in a split-second.

Most catalogers doing business on the Net operate on the Web, which allows photos of their products to be shown. Unlike a paper catalog, the customer can have access to a very large number of catalog pages- far more than a paper publisher can afford to mass produce. Product specs can be made available in great detail for the serious buyer.

Consumer and Business-To-Business Sales

The Web is definitely a popular area for consumer sales- hence, the popularity of items like CDs, clothing and other merchandise.

For business-to-business marketers, the best opportunities are for reaching small- to medium-sized businesses. Fortune 500s are increasingly becoming involved as vendors to those companies. Get started now, and in six months you can be positioned to capture this business too.

Can small business succeed on the Net? Yes. Next month, we'll take a close look at two successful Internet businesses. One of these will be CDnow! The Internet Music Store, which provides a great example of small business Net success.

Another example is provided by a company called Aero Astro, which builds small earth satellites for $5 million or less. They provide business-to-business advertising for satellite parts on the Net and have been steadily drawing customers and sales.

Do you need a high profit margin or high volume to prosper on the Net?

Low margin items can be sold. As with many other areas of marketing, success depends on many factors, including: the special value of your product, what you're willing to risk and how much you want to invest. Perhaps in the future, every company will want to be on the Net, just as everyone wants to be in the white or yellow pages today.

For now, demographics and psychographics are more the driving determinants of Net success- they are much more important factors than profit margin. Unlikely Net prospects include traditional people who are reluctant to change, to use a computer and to work (i.e., viewed as play) to explore new, exciting uses for the computer.

An example of a traditional buyer- even a traditional direct response buyer- who probably will not fit the Net mold would be customers of a company like QVC. This firm sells to middle-aged people. Cubic zirconia consumers may be last to get on the Net.

New Internet and Web buyers, by contrast, will be in their 20s and 30s, highly educated and business and high-tech oriented. To be a Net explorer requires a major delight in the new. Or conversely, some user may be motivated by fear of getting left out of an important innovation!

What are my choices for setting up shop on the Net?

You basically have three options in participating on the net as a vendor or business builder. These are, in order of expense and difficulty: setting up your own node, participating on a mall or providing a low level information service.

We'll give you a brief tour of your three options:

1. Building your own node

You may wish to develop a full node on the Net, as opposed to simple Net presence. This option is most useful for large corporations eager to seek out and reach elite markets or audiences of the technologically sophisticated.

Both consumer and business-to-business oriented firms may have good reasons to build their own nodes. The main advantages to this option are improved directness of access and long-range control.

The customer will not need to go through intermediaries to reach you, when you operate your own node. You will also have power to decide issues of presence and pricing. (No one will be charging you rent.)

On the other hand, net node building is not for the faint-hearted or light of pocketbook. This is a full-time activity. You will need approximately $300,000. Of this, hardware is only about $40,000. The balance of your investment will be for salaries for a programmer, system administrator and a graphic artist- at a minimum.

2. Joining an Internet Mall

Several malls have opened their doors on the Net and invite your participation in their establishments. Some of the more well-known of these are:

                  1.The Internet Shopping Network
                  2.Downtown Anywhere
                  3.American Computer Group/Internet Media Network, Inc.

Downtown Anywhere.

One of the best-known malls on the Net is Downtown Anywhere. They can deliver up to 4,000 "hits" per hour. A hit is a person visiting your store. Not all hits become buyers.

This mall features more than 30 merchants. Fees range from $200 to $2,000 per month. Another entry option is agreement to a sales commission that may range between 8 percent and 15 percent. With this mall, buyers may place an order on-line, but must then confirm that order and provide credit card information over the telephone using an 800 number. Alternatively, they can set up an account with Downtown Anywhere, which then will automatically deliver that number to merchants upon order placement.

American Computer Group/Internet Media Network, Inc.

This company has helped major catalogers establish a site for sales on the Web. Customers include Hello Direct and Paper Direct. Fees for participation include $500 per page to carry digitized information provided by you and $1,000 per page developed by them from your text and transparencies. There is also a monthly service fee of $1,000 and an inquiry processing fee.

3. Provide a low-level information service

Your third option is to provide information-only to customers. This can be done, for example, though Global Network Navigator (GNN), a Net service produced by O'Reilley & Associates.

This service can be used to provide text and contact information to customers. They can then contact you off-line. A low-level service may provide text-only- but this still may be a profitable venture for you.

Advertising and PR and the Net

Your mere Net presence will not be enough to deliver success. If you're selling on the net, you need to advertise it. This can be done both on and off the Net.

In other words, traditional media advertising will help people know you exist on the Net and show them how to find you. Try to offer customers both text and graphical modes of accessing your information.

For awhile more, you will be able to gain valuable publicity just by being the first "whatever"-provider on the net. This first-on-the-block opportunity will of course fade with time.... but you can probably add a new wrinkle that makes your access style or your product and service stand out. After all, that's one of the reasons why you're in marketing, isn't it?