Starting Online Businesses
Benefits of E-Commerce
Written by Chukwuma Asala for Gaebler Ventures
Why e-commerce over a traditional business? Read on...
Conventional businesses are notorious for being insanely hard to get off the ground and keep them up and running.
The introduction of E-commerce in the mid-nineties revolutionized the way the world started to view business in general. If you're looking to start a business right now you might want to consider starting a business online for a number of reasons.
Low cost
Apart from the cost of building a website, having an internet business incurs no other external cost to the business owner. Home-based businesses account for a majority of the businesses being started today and a large percentage of those home-based businesses are online companies for this exact reason. You have no overhead from having a warehouse for products or services, no employee or very few employees, no rent to pay on a building, etc.
If your business is run through your home you can actually qualify for a number of tax write-offs which will help save you a considerable amount of money when you file your taxes. Advertising is another big cost associated with doing any form of business. With the internet you need not worry about conventional methods of advertising because they don't work. Most people hear about certain websites through people they know or affiliate programs that businesses online use to get their name pop up first on a search engine page.
Infinite customer base
The internet is a very effective medium for engaging in commerce because it is worldwide and reaches every geographic location where the internet exists. This is a goldmine for anyone engaging in business online because your customer base is infinite. You can reach different markets all across the world with all types of people with all types of demographics simply because you have a business on the internet. The initial challenge would be to get your business noticed on the internet.
After one person frequents your site the rest is history. Ever wonder why on your linkedn, facebook, myspace, or orkut page that you have all these different advertisements on it based on your interests? The internet knows where you normally go to and will provide you with information that you have proven to be interested in.
Positive trend
This should be a no-brainer, but there are more people that have a computer in their home today than any other technology in the world. The internet has become the communication medium of today and will continue to be into the near future. You can expect more and more people will grow more accustomed to the internet over the next decade.
Even the baby boomers who were initially scared of the internet are now using the internet more and more now that they are comfortable with it. And the youth don't know any other way. There are kids right now being born that will never know a world with computers and without business being done via internet.
Chukwuma Asala is an international student from Nigeria who is studying to earn an MBA from the State University of New York in Albany. He has analyzed more than 20 industry case studies throughout his education thus far, and hopes to bring some of his business knowledge to Gaebler.com.
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