Product ReviewsBooks
The eGuide from US e-commerce company ClearCommerce is a strategic step-by-step workbook designed to take the guesswork out of entering the world of Internet business. Already pretty popular in the US, it's now available for the first time in Europe. Sensibly enough, the book sets out in its first part to determine the on-line potential of your products and services. Among other things it covers site merchandising and marketing, partnership planning, back-office issues, payment processing, shipping, accounting and result tracking. However, instead of taking the usual boring approach, the eGuide accomplishes this assessment by way of a multiple-choice, question-and-answer session. Once the results and implications of this have been analysed and understood, the second part of the eGuide takes the reader on, pointing
Unfortunately, there are a couple of things wrong with this book which spoil what could be an essential business primer for the emerging UK e-commerce market. For starters it's still a US guide, not a UK or European one. No effort has been made to change dollar references to UK pounds, and all the resource information is US-centred. This is a great shame, as a small amount of effort in revising the guide for its target European market could have made an immeasurable difference to its usefulness. However, the biggest blunder is in the design department. Full credit to whoever took charge of the logical layout - it's just a pity that person appears to have been colour blind. This book is a nightmarish vision, mixing black pages with white text, black pages with yellow text, yellow pages with black text and copious quantities of Day-Glo green pages. Worse still are the card inserts, which I guess are meant to make navigation between sections easier, but in actual fact make handling the book slightly unpleasant. Fortunately, the information within the eGuide, and the fact that it's completely free, just about tip the balance in its favour. By Davey Winder |
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