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Spring 2000
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According to the television adverts, e-commerce is about cottage industries selling olive-oil to overseas customers. If however information is your business rather than more tangible products, the benefits of the e-commerce revolution may seem a little less apparent. But the web is much more than a shop window and companies with information to sell are finding that the Internet can provide a better way of finding potential buyers and a first-class means of delivering their products.
If the web is fast becoming the preferred purchasing tool of the professional, then surely its principal currency is information. The three-dimensional database community has known about the value of information, especially when properly organised to accurately represent the real world, for getting on for four decades. Many of us are sitting on heaps of information that quite possibly could be just what someone out “there” is seeking and would be prepared to pay for.
Traditionally, packaging and marketing information was a cumbersome task that rarely justified its expense, but the Internet changes all that. Search engines mean that the presence of a single keyword can connect seller and potential buyer. This takes us back to the shop window metaphor however - great if you can leave your shop counter at the drop of a hat and personally greet anyone taking a casual glance at your display, but hardly realistic - except when it comes to the Internet. An intelligent site will record the pages visited by a user as they navigate the site. This information, coupled to their e-mail address which is easy to capture, is manna from the Gods to anyone concerned with marketing.
We talked to Tony Cutlan, who has been at the forefront of graphical implementations of three-dimensional databases for over ten years. Tony said:
“We at Software Incorporated see a number of companies that act as nothing more than hubs for information. Yet their success and appeal lies in that they trace each user in terms of the information they look at. Then by analysing the statistics from the site a company can work out whether a potential product has a market, whether and where a product needs to be sub-divided for better visibility and where greater potential lies with working with partner companies.”
It would seem to follow that anyone who chooses to spend more than a moment looking at your site is going to be someone that you will want to talk to, so get those sites updated and start turning visitors into real prospects.
So you’ve promoted your services or information products, how do you go about getting money for them? There are a few common approaches according to Tony Cutlan:
“Basically you have two choices. Whether you want to run a subscription service or a pay-per-use system there are on-line credit card transaction handling companies desperate for your business. It’s a simple process to hand-off the entire financial aspects of the site to one of these companies, who will in turn provide you with a list of validated customers or authorise a particular transaction.
“We (Software Incorporated) have developed both types of systems, with subscriber services offering e-mailed or web-downloadable information products and systems that raise a credit-card debit every time a user places an order. The cost of sale is negligible, market image is greatly enhanced and it’s a terrific way of building your customer base.”
Software Incorporated are just completing work on a product that is to be featured on the cover CD of a leading Independent Financial Advisors magazine in April of this year. It will be sold over the Internet and features a classic Windows front-end through which users interrogate a database of Unit Trusts, Pensions and Life Assurance funds, which is itself updated monthly via e-mail or web download.
The surprise and joy and inspiration of the above mentioned system is that it owes its elegance to the driving force behind it which is a UniVerse database running on NT. This just goes a long way to prove that far from being distant cousins, e-commerce and three-dimensional databases can be close companions in the world of information retailing.
Go on, push the boundaries, push your systems and make your existing technology work for you.
Elkie Holland
Last Updated: 01 May 1999