(MONEY Magazine) – Troubleshooting computer problems all day is child's play for Carol Higgins, a 26-year-old desktop-support engineer who works in Alexandria, Va. But building a website to support Binky Computers for Kids, her one-year-old start-up? No way! "Putting up an Internet storefront on my own was frustrating," says Higgins, "and I'm in information systems."

After spending three months building a clunky, amateurish site using off-the-shelf software, Higgins turned to Vista.com (www.vista.com) for a more sophisticated e-commerce solution. Vista.com is one of a growing number of companies that help entrepreneurs quickly and inexpensively develop attractive, easy-to-navigate websites that can showcase products and electronically process orders.

By using one of the 50 or so retail storefront templates in Vista's roster, scanning in photos of her colorful computer accessories geared for children and typing in her product descriptions, Higgins built www.binkypc.com, a 23-page Internet store, in just a few hours.

Having a more professional site was exactly what Higgins needed to boost her fledgling business. At her old site, which was more like an electronic brochure than a true e-tail operation, Higgins handled customer orders by e-mail and phone. Now shoppers can click on their choices and fill out an order form online. No wonder sales have tripled since she premiered her slick new site.

Navigating the eBSP landscape

These days, only 28% of small firms operate e-commerce businesses, reports online research firm eMarketer, but that number is expected to soar as more entrepreneurs tap into the free or low-cost offerings of e-business service providers (eBSPs) like Vista.com. Not only do eBSPs host your site and provide templates and tools to help do-it-yourselfers build engaging electronic storefronts, but many also offer merchant accounts to facilitate secure credit-card transactions. When you sign up for a one-year contract with Vista.com, for instance, you'll pay a flat fee of $29.95 a month for building, hosting and transaction services.

Many other highly regarded eBSPs, such as Freemerchant.com (www.freemerchant.com) eCongo.com (www.econgo.com) and Bigsteps (www.bigstep.com) will host and let you build your site for free, but you'll have to pay for merchant services. For example, Bigstep's merchant partner, Cardservice International, charges $24.95 a month, plus 2.35% of total sales and 20[cents] per credit-card transaction.

Both free and paid eBSPs make most of their money from domain name registrations, merchant accounts and clients who opt for the providers' premium e-commerce services--from securing banner ads on leading search engines that drive Net surfers to their clients' sites to providing 24-hour tech support.

According to Kneko Burney of the high-tech research firm Cahners In-Stat Group, there are more than 30 eBSPs out there, so make sure you're getting the service and features you desire and that you understand all of the fees involved before you sign on. Her advice: Review the templates on several of the free sites to see which one has the features you require. Then test the flexibility and suitability of the templates by building small versions of your site.

Such eBSPs as Vista.com and bCentral .com (www.bcentral.com) provide various template designs that are specifically tailored to a wide range of businesses, from day-care centers to professional practices to wholesale goods distributors. An orthopedist's site, for example, might feature an area for scheduling or canceling an appointment on the main page. But not all doctors' sites must look alike. In addition to your text, the font, color palette and graphics you choose will personalize your site.

If you plan to take credit-card orders, compare the transaction fees of the free eBSPs vs. the flat-rate providers that offer bundled services. Also consider whether you need credit-card payments to be automatically processed when the order is placed, which is expensive, or whether you want the site to store the credit-card numbers until you can process the transactions manually.

In addition to the e-commerce concerns you may have, be sure to keep these three additional factors in mind when comparing providers:

--Ask about space limitations before you start building your site. Check to see that your site will accommodate the graphics that you want to display. Some eBSPs are better suited for service companies or very small e-tailers that don't have an extensive product line to feature.

--Find out if the eBSPs are allowed to make money by selling and placing banner ads of other companies on your site. Blinking ads can be extremely distracting.

--Be sure the candidates on your short list can fulfill all of your needs, including administrative or inventory management services, as your business grows. Then you can zero in on the lowest-cost or free provider.