Good read in the San Jose Mercury News about a small entrepreneur who moved from brick-and-mortar store to entirely online (link below, excerpts follow):
Taking a small business from a storefront to online: A look back one year later - San Jose Mercury News: " . . . A calmer routine: My store schedule was 24/7. Nine a.m. to 8 p.m. was my day at the store; I'd come home and make notes for the next day. Here, I just have a nicer routine. I include regular breaks from being hunched over something. I make time to meditate... I also work on lines and update the websites regularly. I have a big calendar with tasks laid out months in advance. I researched how to take photos that show off jewelry well. When I run into a problem, I ask Google... I discovered it's better to join an online platform with a force behind it, rather than create a site. So I created SageJewelryArts.com through Storenvy, a marketplace run through PayPal. OpenSky is another marketplace I use, too. The more of these you can be on, the more exposure you get. They're super-easy to create, and there's no HTML to worry about... Looking back a year later, gross revenue does not tell an honest picture. I was making a lot more gross revenue with brick and mortar. My net profit is more now. A lot of money coming in doesn't mean anything if the bottom line is not profit." (emphasis added, read more at link above)
referenced: http://www.storenvy.com/ and http://www.opensky.com/
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