E-commerce is a crucial way of selling goods online.
80% of all companies surveyed believe that doing business using Internet based e-commerce will be crucial to their survival in the coming years. Just because you're a small local business that has a loyal customer base, don't be misled into thinking that someone with the same products to offer, but who is doing it over the Internet will not steal those very same customers. They will have lower prices. They will have better service. And they will be able to deliver to customer's doors at lower prices than you can supply....and likely from out of town.
If only you were open
24/7...
If your business hours are 8:00 to 5:00, 5 days a week, that's 40 hours out of a potential 168 hours to do business. This is only 24% of the time available to you for your business. You would be surprised how many times your customers would like to shop with you.
Sure sooner or later, most businesses are going to be doing business using Internet and Intranet based e-commerce. But, Marketing 101 tells you that the first to market with a high degree of market attractiveness grabs market share that is almost impossible to snatch back. Business-to-business e-commerce is still relatively new.
Remember the days before fax machines?
Remember when the first fax sales person showed up? Do you know some of the things he heard? Like "What do I need with that? I've got phone and mail? Why would I spend that kind of money for something I already have?".
Larger competitors do have an advantage.
They have lots of money and lots of resources. They are usually the first to implement leading edge technologies and that's why they're big. But, they often struggle with the simplest business processes. Their customers have a hard time reaching the right people or finding the right information, even when they are "wired". Here's where smaller business can shine, if you can get your hands on the same technology at a fraction of the cost and leverage your personal relationship with your customer through it, custommers will stick with you.
If you make it easy for your customers to get information about your products and services and easy to buy from you, you can beat them. |
