I was personally impacted by the ripple effect of the internet failures today when I received the following message today regarding my Excite Web Store. A great many small businesses use this service:

Dear Freetailer Merchant:

Two weeks from today, April 16, 2001, the Excite Freetailer service will be discontinued, and your Freetailer store site will no longer be available. This e-mail includes suggestions on how you can make your transition to a new hosting and storebuilding solution as smooth as possible for you and your customers.

To keep your customers informed of the changes that are occurring with your Freetailer store, you may want to explain on your Freetailer home page that you are in the process of transferring your store to a new hosting company, and include a link to your new store site as well as your new URL. If you keep a list of e-mail addresses for your customers, you may also want to e-mail them the same information.

To minimize the interruption of service to your customers, you may want to use the next two weeks to find a new hosting provider and build your new store site. Keep in mind that as you transition your store to a new hosting solution, certain services that you have upgraded to (for example, e-mail or your merchant account) may be interrupted for a period of up to 24-72 hours. By using these two weeks to select a new hosting solution and set-up your new store and accompanying services, you can minimize the potential for disrupting the purchasing process and the fulfillment of your customers' orders.

If you haven't already found a new hosting service, we suggest you explore AT&T Small Business Hosting Services. We have partnered with AT&T Small Business Hosting Services to make transitioning your store a little easier; they offer subscription web storefront services with storebuilding tools and account features similar to Freetailer, so you will already be familiar with the tools to build and manage your store. And last year, PC Magazine awarded AT&T Small Business Hosting Services its prestigious Editors' Choice Award for Best Web Hosting Service. AT&T Small Business Hosting Services has also partnered with the same merchant account provider, Northern Trust Bank (NTB), which means that if you already have an NTB merchant account through Freetailer you can continue to use it with their new AT&T Small Business Hosting store. In addition, AT&T Small Business Hosting Services has offered to waive the $50 hosting set-up fees for Freetailer merchants for a limited time. (You will be charged a one-time $25 e-commerce set-up fee, in addition to any applicable monthly fees.) Visit http://www.attsbh.com/affiliate/freetailer to review their hosting and e-commerce packages.

*** WHICH PACKAGE IS BEST FOR YOU? ***

Many Freetailer merchants have also asked which AT&T Small Business Hosting package would be best for them based on their Freetailer store. It all depends on what package and upgrades you have with Freetailer and how many products you have to sell. See the FAQs at www.freetailer.com to find out which package is best for you and learn more about signing up.

*** MANAGING YOUR FREETAILER ACCOUNT THROUGH APRIL 16 ***

Remember that until April 16, you can continue to log in to your Freetailer account at http://www.freetailer.com to manage your store. You will also find a link to FAQs that will help answer questions you might have.

If you have any questions regarding the changes to Excite Freetailer, please e-mail us at mailto:info@freetailer.com

The Excite Freetailer Team mailto:info@freetailer.com

You are receiving this e-mail due to your merchant affiliation with Excite Freetailer. If you prefer not to receive future communication regarding the changes to Excite Freetailer, please reply to this message and type "Remove" in the subject line.

-- Carl Jenkins (somewherepress@aol.com), April 03, 2001