NEW YORK-- In this fall's Internet World in the city that never sleeps, vendors will be busy selling applications for small businesses to build Web shops that never close.
Companies will be touting products aimed at small Web site owners looking to cash in on e-commerce by providing community and retail opportunities for their niche sites.
It’s all about customization, ease-of-use, and turning traffic into cash. "Everyone wants their site to be an AOL," said Elliot Klein, CEO of CyberSites, who will be showcasing at Internet World.
"They read about what kinds of big deals people are doing, and the small to medium guys wish they could be at the table. They want tools, like instant messaging, and wish they could have that, and have that sense of community."
It’s an era of "big boy features and sophisticated tools" tailored for the little guy, Klein said. CyberSites will be debuting an HTML-based software suite called Sticklets that allows Web sites to easily add instant messaging to their site.
CyberSites, said Klein, runs 20 themed communities that offer small companies a chance to share in advertising revenue. Ultimately CyberSites hopes to pay sites that join their network. "Our goal is to pay them, pooling memberships and sharing ad revenue for the traffic that they share in the community," said Klein.
Another company going after the niche e-commerce market is addAshop.com a Miami-based company debuting at Internet World. The company helps site owners quickly create shopping components.
Instead of sending their users to Amazon to shop, small site owners can encourage visitors to open their wallets right where there are. AddAshop.com takes care of backend -- from inventory and delivery -- and lets site owners select what kinds of products they want to hawk.
"The headache is gone with addAshop," said CEO Thomas Cornelius. Cornelius said the company, whose founders are from Germany, has partners from Italy, India, and the United States and plans to roll out addAshop in Europe, starting in Italy at the end of October. Site owners can join addAshop for free and make up to a 25 percent profit on every sale made from addAshop's inventory of books, CDs, and videos.
While the top 10 sites on the Internet get 90 percent of the traffic, Cornelius said the small- to medium-sized market is huge.
"Five hundred visitors a month is still an audience," he said.
Still, addAshop hopes that while 50 percent of its business will come from small sites, the other 50 will come from large corporate sites that want a little customized e-commerce to dress up their presence.
Larry Ellison will also be talking e-commerce at Internet World during an afternoon speech Wednesday. Ellison will likely be promoting his company's Internet application hosting services. On Tuesday, Oracle announced partnerships to host third party accounting, tax, content management, and professional services software to round out the company's Net-based offerings.
Handheld computer upstart Handspring will be showing off add-on products for its Visor computer that will allow consumers to take part in commerce from anywhere.
The Palm competitor will exhibit third-party products that can add electronic book, GPS, MP3 player, pager, and wireless communications capabilities to the Visor using the Springboard expansion slot.
Handspring partners will be touting their mobile computing devices using the emerging Bluetooth radio frequency standard for wireless transactions. Internet World runs through 8 October.
