Tom Taulli is the author of "Investing in IPOs" (Bloomberg Personal Bookshelf). The book can be purchased at Amazon.com by clicking here. You can reach him at tom@taulli.com

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Many companies are starting to realize getting on the Net means much more business. It seems every day, another public company launches an e-site and the stock inevitably soars.

However, e-commerce is not easy. Much complexity takes place behind the scenes. What's more, it is crucial that transactions be quick, efficient, cost-effective, and secure. If not, your virtual business can evaporate.

There are a variety of companies that provide transactional e-commerce services, with the standout being CyberCash. But implementing CyberCash may not be easy for many companies. For example, to accept credit cards on the Net, you need to have an Internet merchant account. The requirements for this can be onerous. Also, there are usually expensive hardware and software needs.

Turnkey e-commerce services are in high demand. The major portals, for instance, are offering their users the ability to start selling goods on the Web (Yahoo purchased a company called Viaweb to do this).

Internet Billing, or ibill, provides a turnkey solution. The company, in existence since the 1980s, originally focused on commerce solutions for computer bulletin boards. Thus, it was a natural transition to offer an e-commerce solution for Internet companies.

"Everyone in the U.S. is a possible customer," said Keith Miller, executive vice president and co-founder of ibill.

ibill offers the Catalog Reseller Payments Service. Basically, your business does not need to obtain an Internet merchant account; rather, ibill becomes a reseller of your products. CRPS also integrates seamlessly with online catalog software. Or if you have your own customized store-front, ibill can easily be integrated there, too.

You do not need an expensive server; instead, your store is hosted on ibill servers. When a customer processes a transaction, ibill handles back-end processing, sending the transaction into the nationwide credit card authorization network.

ibill also has software that detects credit card fraud. "What makes buying online different from traditional shopping is you cannot see the customer's credit card. So we had to develop sophisticated protections into our system. We look at such factors as the number of times the card has been submitted, risk scores, valid addresses, and so on.”

CRPS is a low-risk entry into e-commerce. Accordingly, you will have more time to concentrate on developing new products, fulfillment, and marketing.

ibill's proprietary Commerce Management Interfaces software tracks customer information. With CMIs, it is easy to generate reports, so you can see the effectiveness of your marketing initiatives and customer service.

To set up CRPS, it only takes 48 hours. There are no up-front fees. Rather, ibill makes money on each transaction. If you already have an Internet merchant account, you can still use ibill's back-end processing services. Or if you are using the CRPS system, you can easily upgrade.

The company has 24-hour, seven-day-a-week customer support, including Christmas and New Year's Day.

Helping customers sell as much goods and services as possible is critical. "Selling on the Web is very new, and not many merchants know what to do," said Miller, "So, we are building our site into a hub that provides resources for building successful e-commerce sites."

For instance, the site has a popular column from Mark Grossman, who is well-known in the e-commerce community. The site also includes tips and case studies.

Last year, the company won "Best of Class" award at the Internet Expo for Reseller Services. The judges gave particularly high marks for such categories as "user friendliness" and "visual impact."

The company is self-funded. "With the huge surge of e-commerce, we have been growing very quickly," Miller said.

So far, more than 15,000 merchants use ibill's services. The company has a direct sales forces that focuses on such customers as ISPs and virtual business communities.

With a hot IPO market and surging e-commerce, this may make an interesting IPO candidate, or it may be a synergistic acquisition for a portal.

For comments/questions, contact Tom Taulli at ttaulli@bpia.com.

Commercial: Readers interested in IPOs may want to check out The Investor's Guide To New Issues: How To Profit From Initial Public Offerings, available in our bookstore.