Mexican Net Dance

1. Determine which area of Mexico to target. Metropolitan areas, such as Monterrey or Mexico City, are probably your best bets.

2. Evaluate your product's potential. Currently, big sellers include PC hardware, music, books, travel and software. Office equipment and supplies, entertainment tickets, video games, jewelry and financial management services are predicted to be strong e-commerce candidates soon.

3. Decide how your e-commerce product will be delivered in Mexico.

4. Set up a local fax number in Mexico or a toll-free U.S. number to be used for customer service purposes. Says Daniel Ordaz, an e-marketing expert, "Most businesses [and consumers] in Mexico still communicate by fax. Be prepared to [support] online communications with offline technology."

5. Hire a translator and localization experts for site implementation.

6. Have Spanish-speaking customer service help on hand to respond to questions, back orders and shipping problems.

		www.infoamericas.com: market research on Mexico and Latin America www.bnamericas.com: business news covering the Americas www.usmcoc.org: United States Mexico Chamber of Commerce, which opened its own e-commerce portal in late 2000

Contact Sources

• Ion Americas, www.ionamericas.com
• Daniel Ordaz, www.telcel.com/aetmeindex.html

This article was originally published in the February 2001 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Mexican Net Dance.