should i market now or wait until the site is live and functioning?

[Eric Wagner]

There's nothing worse then a "coming soon" page, in my professional opinion. A user expects a certain bit of content, or at least something relevant, and then they get to a mostly blank page and see, "Gotcha! Nothing worth spending your time on here."

That being said, there's no problem with building out a useful site with great content about the products you are going to sell - reviews, videos, articles, etc. You can include a note mentioning that you're not selling that product yet, and maybe even a date when you will, but in the meantime your site is providing valuable information to your visitors.

If you're not willing or able to make the site useful to your visitors, leave it down until you have the time.