Even though an increasing number of small businesses have a presence online only a small percentage of these sell online. There is a perception that trading online is expensive to set up and troublesome to maintain. This is driving many businesses to loose out on increased revenues and the trading opportunities that the internet brings.
The reasons that many small to medium sized businesses shy away from the internet are varied e.g. fear of credit card fraud – technology worries and difficulty over customer support. Some businesses also have the perception that it is irrelevant to their business. However unless you take advantage of what the internet has to offer your business you are likely to fall well behind the competition.
These days many barriers for small to medium sized businesses related to trading online have been resolved. Increasingly, technically aware business owners are "giving it a go themselves" with freely available content management systems or online catalogue/shopping cart solutions. Such systems can be easily implemented and are supported by thriving online communities.
In dealing with concerns over handling payments online an increasing number of services are available which accept credit card payments over the internet. Providers such as Paypal and Worldpay facilitate secure credit card payments charging a small transaction based fee with the business never having to get involved with card details just requiring the customers address to dispatch the goods to. This helps allay fears of website security and encourages users to transact with the operators website.
Website development is now also considerably easier, with many template sites offering out of the box solutions that can be purchased and integrated with Content Management systems and catalogues. Alternatively products such as actinic offer complete solutions at low cost that can be implemented in very short timescales.
Another challenge has been generating traffic. Historically Search Engine rankings has been a black art. However these days keeping on top of the search engines is made easier thanks to services such as Googles Adwords, which offers pay-per-click services for improving ranking based on key search terms which could be used to find your business.
Clearly having a web based store will require some investment, however a carefully introduced and managed online presence will generate extra revenues and ensure that capital investment isn't wasted.
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