What does it mean to be important? By definition, something that is important is of significant worth or consequence. The important strongly affects the course of events, the way the world works, even the nature of reality.
In this day and age, nothing is more important for the success of your business than being on the internet. It doesn’t matter what you sell or to whom you sell it: If you have a business, you should have a website.
A website puts your business in front of potential customers, all over the world, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Without one, your business is invisible to millions of internet users and unable to compete for revenue with rival retailers who do have a web presence.
Research shows that 80 percent of Americans ages 18 to 75 make purchasing decisions based on advertising and information they have seen online. And 70 percent of U.S. adults use the internet as their primary information source when shopping locally for products and services.
Erick Schonfeld, writing for TechCrunch.com, reports that, “While $155 billion worth of consumer goods were bought online last year (2009), a far larger portion of offline sales were influenced by online research. Forrester estimates that $917 billion worth of retail sales last year were ‘Web-influenced.’ It also estimates that online and Web-influenced offline sales combined accounted for 42 percent of total retail sales and that percentage will grow to 53 percent by 2014, when the Web will be influencing $1.4 billion worth of in-store sales.”
Bottom line, a website is the best way to build and maintain customer relationships, raise customer awareness, and increase sales.
But recent studies show that almost half of all American small businesses do not have a website.
If you are one of the nearly 50 percent of small-business owners without a website, there’s never been a better time to get one, because the outlook on e-commerce in 2010 is bright.
Why is that?
Because, according to a recent article on Entrepreneur.com by Carol Tice, e-commerce is recovering from the economic downturn at a much faster rate than brick-and-mortar retail.
Tice writes that research firm eMarketer has estimated a bump of 13 percent for e-commerce in 2010 as opposed to the mere 3 percent forecasted by the International Council of Shopping Centers for conventional retail.
“If you’ve been thinking about exploring doing some online selling,” summarizes Tice, “now might be a great time to put that plan into action.”
The TechCrunch.com article echoes those sentiments, saying, “Forrester Research put out a new five-year forecast predicting that E-commerce sales in the U.S. will keep growing at a 10 percent compound annual growth rate through 2014. It forecasts online retail sales in the U.S. will be nearly $250 billion, up from $155 billion in 2009.”
Not too shabby, huh?
And things have come a long way from the bad old days of the early internet. Getting started with e-commerce nowadays doesn’t have to be difficult, expensive or time-consuming. Done the right way, launching a website can be fast, inexpensive and easy.
For example, Eldorado Trading Company’s StoreExtender program is one of the simplest, most reasonably priced, entirely flexible subscription-based online shopping systems in the industry.
Says Kathleen Perkins, owner of HerAnticipation.com, “We had done a lot of research on websites but the cost of creating one was exorbitant. Rather than putting thousands of dollars into creating a website, we decided to go with StoreExtender and we’re so happy we did. In only two months we’ve tripled our online income.”
Eldorado makes it easy by maintaining the entire back end—customer service, shipping and billing. Eldorado drop ships directly to any address, hosts the site, charges customer credit cards, houses the inventory, and handles customer service. All StoreExtender clients have to do is promote their site and cash the margin checks.
“We made our initial investment back the first month and since then we’ve seen a tremendous increase in sales. I would highly recommend StoreExtender,” says Lisa Lawless of Holistic Wisdom.
In addition to increasing your online presence, StoreExtender puts the power of an entire warehouse right in your store and increases sales opportunities.
Adam & Eve’s Melissa Lott says, “StoreExtender has proven to be an invaluable sales tool, adding revenue we might otherwise have missed.”
So don’t miss out on all of the opportunities—and profits—that having your own website can provide. Always remember the importance of being on the internet.
Larry Garland is the founder and CEO of award-winning adult toy and novelty distribution company Eldorado Trading Company, established in 1974. This article originally ran in the August issue of AVN.
