eCommerce - 'Tain't Easy

2000

It is not easy. And everyone wants their piece. Their cut. Fees abound.
Once you manage to get there.
I want a commercial page on-line that can process credit cards and that and then forward shipping orders to whomever I finally pick to handle fulfillment orders.
This is in addition to Amazon.com - whose instruction set runs to dozens of pages and rules and restrictions and is where I will place the book. In both softcover and eBook format.
But I want my own site. So I signed up with Verio. Because Verio bought Best, my ISP provider and web host to date.These guys are always buying each other up. I also signed up for Verio to do the webhosting for the other domains (I have seven).
Well, Verio put the six non-commercial domains on something called VPS - virtual personal server - where you rent disk space (like I was doing at Best) only 200MB (much bigger space) and no bandwidth charges (good. The site is getting hits and is active.).
That was not a swift move on their part - the salesman - Joel - was friendly but badly inept - and I should never have been put on VPS. Because VPS assumes that you are a server-hack or technical webmaster and I am not - I am a content generator. I do not want to set up my own e-mail and handle the logs and stats. I do not want to administer my websites. Not me. I want to maintain them.
So I bitched and complained - and technical support called me and said "Go to Iserverspro" - a little affiliated company - "they can transfer the 75MB you just put on-line and they can do the admin work - same charge". (Account transfer.) Actually, my older son at Cisco transferred the 75 MB of data - and set himself up as .rhost - he can access my websites now. And help me. But I don't want to constantly be calling on him. There is a limit.
So I went to Iserverpros - and we are in the process of (at long last) actually moving the domain names over. And the guy at Iserverpros has a contact at Network Solutions. Oh good! We can find lost domains.
Meanwhile, back at the commerce adventure, the domain name transfer came from Network Solutions and was sent back to Network Solutions approved BUT the ebooks-n-stuff.com domain is STILL AT BEST. Why?
And the Iserverpros people haven't worked with Mercantec so they don't know if they are going to be able to help me do the commercial page. Unless I want to start over and go get a merchant account and sign up for an internet credit card processing thing and pay all that again. And wait 4-6 weeks. (Now I need Tylenol!)
I was promised (by Verio) that I would receive a book and software - turns out, first I have to go on-line and register for the software - OK. I tried. I dutifully typed in the LONG URL and my LONG password and filled in the form and got this:
404 Not Found
Url '/cgi-local/storemgr.exe/online-store/StoreMgr/wiz-intro.html' not found on server
Whoops? Is this anyway to run a business? I am very frustrated.
So I sent more email to support.
IServerpros will look into this deal and see if they can't coach me. I am supposed to have a CD and templates, etc. It is supposed to be easy. It may cost another $1,000 to get the page up.
All I want is a one-page order sheet with credit card processing (on-line processing) - what they call CyberCash or something. Money goes here - order goes there. Voila. People can buy your book.
Simple. You would think!
Now I have found out that Verio is not doing the dial-up portion of the site - that can stay with Best - so I will still have a little dial-up ISP account with Best - and get to keep my e-mail.
That's the good news. (Got that all straight? Because I am just barely hanging in there!)
The Fabio site, and Troy's site, and my Son's site and mine can be updated and maintained at last sometime in the next few days (I have kept them pretty much in limbo).
So now it's let's get the bugs out for the commercial page.
Because after I list the book and the poster, and figure out how to take orders from bookstores, I have a calendar coming along (UMAX is RMAing the transparency adapter Monday. Of course the PowerLookIII scanner was faulty! It was mine after all!).
And 6 weeks to do it in. (Look at 1200 photos and pick out the ones I want. And figure out if I have the money to front this!)
And then there is the next book, a cookbook or two, perhaps merchandise.
And I want to have the act together.
Jettison is a test balloon.
Sort of a term-paper for starting a small on-line business.
Let's see. Reseller's License. Check. Collect and pay taxes to the State of California for anything shipped into California. Not elsewhere.
Transaction fee. The bank card, CyberCard, InstaBuy, whomever I end up with takes $25/month and $0.25/transaction.
Adobe (if I ever get Merchant figured out) will take a royalty cut. So far I've spent 3 45-minute sessions waiting for technical support to answer the questions Adobe sales cannot.
The server account costs $200/month. Includes the software. If they get rid of the 404.
Printing costs.
Shrink wrapping.
Shipping.
Accounting is a bridge I haven't crossed yet.
RMAs - I won't take back anything out of its wrapper or not resale-able.
Unless the printer printed a weird book - that happens less than 1% of the time - a wild hair - a jammed paper - a collating mess.
Will there be anything left for me? I MUST recover the costs. And that's 20,000 books. All of them.
Even if it means they get shipped to my storage cube and I truck them to Star Trek conventions! Which I may have to end up doing!
Or I mail them out of my living room. A project that looks better all the time!
While I await the ability to register my software, I have to go over fulfillment contracts and sign one. And the one I am looking at wants $1,000/month plus charges. No way. I need to see what the real cost is - because handling and shipping are add-ons to the order. And these fees can eat you alive. And so can storage costs (by the Sq foot.)
Come to think of it - I also need to call Eric and set up my Fabio date.
Or Eric needs to call me. I'm not sure how we are doing this either.
But looking at all the paperwork, I have come to one conclusion.
I need my own Eric!
You can't tell me I haven't tried!