Guest Author - Rhonda Cliett

E-trepreneur! by Sherry Szydlik and Lamont Wood is an excellent resource for the beginner interested in establishing an e-commerce presence on the web. The book covers every topic needed to get started on your new internet website, from designing a business plan to fulfilling the first order.

In each chapter you will find detailed explanations for each topic, as well contact information for additional resources. As an example, the section on “shipping” easily explains everything you need to know to ship your products. Questions answered include: How do you calculate shipping costs? How do you get your packages to the carrier? Is package tracking available? The section also provides great shipping tips as well as contact information for the major carriers (i.e. United States Postal Service, United Parcel Service, etc.).

Another great feature of e-trepreneur! are the real-life examples scattered throughout the pages of other people that have established e-commerce websites. Some of the best knowledge we can acquire are from the actual examples of other people. We can learn from their successes as well as from their failures.

As mentioned, this is a great resource for someone who has never set up an e-commerce website. However, if you already have an e-commerce site up and running then you will find this book to be too primary.

A statement on the cover of the book infers that you can have a profitable internet store in 7 days. I might challenge the ability to have a profitable store in 7 days. I believe that it is possible to have an internet presence in 7 days but it is unlikely that it will be profitable at this stage of the game.

Overall, this is a superb resource for someone new to e-commerce. The book covers nearly every conceivable topic and the information is easy-to-understand and easy-to-implement.