Well-designed and well-implemented electronic commerce tools, including online ticketing, online merchandising and online fundraising, can be used to enhance your marketing effort. An organization that intends to succeed with electronic commerce needs to provide their customers with enhanced services that add value to what they can do manually or by phone. Additionally, these services need to be faster, less expensive, and more secure in order to convince the user to buy. As David Kline, from HotWired Magazine, stated in a 1996 article:

" Online shopping sites must begin to offer superior value - in the form of better prices, better service, and more convenience - over what consumers can get in real-world stores. And they must begin to apply the good old-fashioned, time-tested sciences of merchandising and retailing to the unique characteristics of the online environment."

There are some good reasons to implement electronic commerce as part of your Web site, one being that your audience may already be asking for the services that online commerce can provide. In an age of shopping for everything from flowers to groceries to cars online, customers are becoming accustomed to shopping online in areas they may have never previously imagined. With the estimated percentage of online shoppers ranging anywhere from 25 to 70 percent of total Internet users over the next four years alone, most analysts predict that electronic commerce will soon become as commonplace as telephone or catalogue ordering is now. Implementing a sound strategy for electronic commerce while the market is growing and before this " added value" becomes a basic component of most Web sites may prove to be key to your success. This section will further discuss the various ways that an arts organization can use electronic commerce to enhance their current marketing efforts.

Basic Commerce Requirements
Commerce Site Design
Online Ticketing
Online Merchandising
Online Fundraising