Running Free

Free Storefronts

"Originally I went with a [for-pay] e-commerce service," says Glenn McComber, a partner in Breaker Spot, a Sarasota, Florida, firm that sells alarm systems and other electrical products. "I had to hire someone to develop the site, and it was always a problem getting across what I wanted. But within minutes I was setting up my own site on Bigstep."

Taking a small business onto the Web may generate extra income, but getting it there can give you headaches and siphon money out of your pocket. Even low-cost Web storefronts like Yahoo Store and ICat may require a bigger financial commitment than fledgling operations are willing to make to go online.

Free e-commerce services are one way to get your Web feet wet without exhausting your bank account. We tested Bigstep, ECongo, and FreeMerchant to see just how far zero dollars could take us in e-commerce. The answer is that they go as far as taking a customer's credit card number. From there on, the costs add up.

Build It for Free

The best thing about building a storefront with a free service like Bigstep, ECongo, or FreeMerchant is that you don't have to know HTML. Like fee-based storefronts Yahoo Store and ICat, the freebies let you pick a design template, enter basic information, and set options like accepted methods of payment. If you're assembling a retail-like storefront, you then create a catalog and fill it with descriptive text and digital images. The store's underlying commerce features--the shopping cart, order forms, and tax and shipping calculations--are usually set up by the service. Other tools range from site traffic reports to assistants that register your site with several search engines.

Each free e-commerce service shows its true colors in the details. Bigstep's strong point, for instance, is its easy setup: A step-by-step wizard and a convenient checklist of to-do tasks lead you through store making. FreeMerchant, meanwhile, excels at back-office tasks: It's the only free host that tracks inventory and lets you integrate your online store with QuickBooks, the small-business accounting program. ECongo doesn't distinguish itself in any specific area.

Though some fee-based e-store hosts limit the number of products you can put in your catalog or make you pay more to build a beefier online inventory, the services we looked at let you add all the items you want to your sales list. Bigstep does, however, limit each user's image file storage space to 12MB.

What a Deal!

What's the catch? To make money on the deal, ECongo plans to sell small ads on its members' sites. Bigstep and FreeMerchant plan to provide unspecified fee-based services to members or partner with suppliers like OfficeMax.

Though these services don't charge a dime to put a store on the Web, they do impose some costs--specifically, credit card transaction fees. To process credit card orders, you have to pay to set up a merchant account; there's also a charge for each credit card transaction. Be sure to investigate each hosting service's merchant account setup and transaction charges before you decide where to open shop. Prices range from Bigstep's charges of $15 per month (with no setup fee) and 20 cents per transaction to FreeMerchant's $399 software charge, $45 monthly fee, and 35-cent surcharge per transaction.

Despite such costs, these services' gratis storefront hosting, virtual shopping carts, and other complimentary tools are nothing to sneeze at. Again, consider all your options before diving in.

Bigstep.com

SUMMARY

PRO: Outstanding step-by-step wizard for store creation. CON: Must use service's merchant account for credit card orders.

Bigstep.com isn't such a big step for small businesses eager to try out e-commerce without investing a lot of dollars. Using wizards, Bigstep walks you through site building, catalog creation, and report setup. And Bigstep breaks the process down into tasks and even includes a to-do checklist that tracks what you need to finish. That helps you parcel the job into small chunks you complete as time permits--a major selling point for people building their store on stolen time.

Bigstep offers 28 design templates for customizing colors and font sizes; you also get a shopping cart for customers to gather their selections and place orders. Finished sites can look as slick as any produced by a professional designer, and the range of options available allows your online presence to look quite different from other storefronts created with the same templates. But Bigstep's biggest advantage is its suitability for both service- and product-oriented businesses. While ECongo and FreeMerchant are basically online catalog generators, Bigstep's designs can accommodate small businesses that sell services, rather than goods.

Our biggest complaint--one we heard from several small businesses, as well--is that you must use Bigstep's merchant account partner to get real-time authorization. To its credit, Bigstep's merchant account costs are the lowest of the three we reviewed ($15 per month plus transaction fees), but businesses that already have an account elsewhere won't want to pay for a second. The service's other significant limitation--the 12MB maximum for storing image files--shouldn't create any problems for you unless you plan to post an enormous, picture-heavy catalog.

ECongo.com

SUMMARY

PRO: In-store search tool, lists your store in a mall-like directory. CON: Cookie-cutter look, wizard tool is of limited help.

ECongo's store maker is cruder than Bigstep's, and the service lacks the back-office tools that make FreeMerchant appealing.

ECongo does offer the core set of store-building and maintenance tools, including a shopping cart, access to a merchant account (for $40 per month, plus transaction fees), and order processing. It features only six templates, which tend to generate online storefronts that look like cookie-cutter copies. For instance, all ECongo storefronts share the same navigational toolbar at the top of the screen. What's more, the chore of adding departments and categories or of fleshing out the front page with images and text can be daunting, since the store-making guide effectively leaves you on your own after the basic store is in place.

On the other hand, ECongo does provide a couple of tools that the others omit. A built-in store search tool, for example, enables customers to jump directly to a product that they are interested in, rather than having to hunt through the entire store. And of the three services we examined, only ECongo collects its members in a business directory designed to drive traffic to your store. But these attractive perks aren't enough to sway us. We think you can find better help for your e-business than ECongo offers.

FreeMerchant

SUMMARY

PRO: Imports catalog information from spreadsheets and databases, integrates online ordering with QuickBooks for processing, no catalog size limit. CON: High credit card transaction fee, obtuse store-building process.

Ambitious entrepreneurs looking to integrate e-commerce with their existing operation will get more from FreeMerchant than from any other free host. It includes the necessary core of store-building tools and lets you stock an unlimited catalog on the Web, but its forte is how it lets users manage their online business.

FreeMerchant is the only free store service that lets you import data from an existing database or spreadsheet to speed up catalog building. It accepts info from 1-2-3, DBase, Excel, FoxPro, and Paradox. It's also the only service that exports order invoices to QuickBooks. And it automatically posts items from your catalog to EBay, the giant online auction site.

Creating your store at FreeMerchant seems unduly hard, however. The 50-plus templates offer color and background variations on a handful of layouts, and at times you're left guessing about the next step to take. As a result, you'll have to fiddle with the storefront layout to finesse it into shape. And FreeMerchant's charge of 30 cents per transaction for credit card authorization (on top of a $40 monthly fee) is the highest of the trio.

FreeMerchant's excellent management tools may be lost on an e-commerce neophyte, but if you want maximum functionality from your free storefront service, this site is your best bet.

Gregg Keizer is an Oregon-based freelance writer. Paul Heltzel is a frequent contributor to PC World.