Apart from fact that e-commerce is growing at rate of more than 25 percent a year, use of online features can bring efficiency to virtually every aspect of business process, be it supply chain management or customer support management.

But, how can you build an e-commerce business and take advantages of all these great possibilities? After all, you are pretty sure that anything to do with new technology is complicated, time-consuming, and expensive.

Believe it or not, this is just a misconception that most business owners have about Internet technology. The truth is – in order to run a business online and reap profits, like any new effort, you need to do a little homework, have patience and determination, and get going.

Take following steps seriously and in no time you will be able to embrace fascinating world of online business.

Take your products online

Getting your product online does not simply mean - having a nice picture and a product narration to go with it. Effective use of Internet is based on standards. Standards, as you know, are created to facilitate common use of a technology. If you ever imported or exported a product or service, or if you registered your product with some kind of authorities ever; you certainly know that each product falls under certain subcategory according to classification system that you encountered. Internet is same thing. Since emergence of Internet, several classification systems have been developed.

If you think long term and would like to use same catalog with multiple e-marketplaces, you should adopt one of prevailing classification system in Internet. The best online catalog classification available from my point of view is UNSPSC. For one thing, many prominent e-marketplaces adopted this particular system, which allows you to post your products on multiple e-procurement systems and e-marketplaces.

How do you do this? I would suggest you to become a member of one of e-marketplaces, where you can aggregate your products using some kind of simple wizards or forms. E-marketplaces based on Commerce One’s largest B2B e-marketplace enabler, have this facility.

The subject lines of these emails are pretty similar. Something like: Business relationship, Urgent Assistance needed, Soliciting for your assistance, A cry for help etc. Most of emails from this scam begin in same way. Here are two excerpts from most recent emails that we received:

"I am Engr Moses Ekpen a director in budget and planning department of Federal Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources (FMPNR), I had a seven man Tenders Board Committee in charge of contract award and Payment approvals. I came to know of you in my search for a reliable and reputable person to handle a very confidential transaction, which involves transfer of a huge sum of money to a foreign account."

Or

"I am Mrs. Mariam Abacha, widow of Gen. Sani Abacha, The Late Nigerian Military Head of State. You were introduced to me through Chamber of Commerce. I am presently in distress and under House arrest while my son Mohammed is undergoing trial in Lagos and Abuja. He is presently detained in prison custody. The government has frozen all family account and auctioned all our properties.

To save family from total bankruptcy I have managed to ship to Europe and Asia through a Shipping company, sum of US20, 000,000.00 respectively kept by my late husband."

The essence of these emails are also basically same – person although does not know you, thanks to your business reputation, has decided to contact you with a very confidential proposal to transfer a mind boggling amount of money from his country to any foreign land.