I am exploring business possibilities for a small business B2C site in a niche market. As a former IT professional, I have had many years of experience with high-end B2C package solutions such as BroadVision, BEA and ATG. However, I do not know the small business end of the spectrum.

I would like to develop a site with rich parametric search capabilities (i.e., searching by a variety of product properties), and ultimately some ability for personalization. At the same time, I would like to leverage ready-made components or package solutions for the shopping cart and the interface to the credit card processor. Because the page content will be highly dynamic and the search must be customized, I cannot use an off-the-shelf solution or let, say, Yahoo build the site.

Any thoughts or advice from someone who has been down this road would be greatly appreciated.

Best Regards,
Keith McNabb
[email protected]