If you have a business that sells physical goods and that business does
not yet have an active internet presence, consider this. In 2008, online
retail trade turnover in the US measured somewhere around $230
billion, which represented some 10 of total US retail sales!
Even with the recent economic downturn, the percentage of retail trade
that is transacted online is set to keep growing throughout the
commercialized world as the internet becomes more sophisticated and
efficient, while high street businesses are constantly on the lookout to
expand their customer base still further.
In fact, if you have a real world, bricks and mortar business that is not
represented online, there has never been a better time to get your
business online. Even if you already have a web site, unless you keep
abreast of the latest online business trends and thinking and you are
probably too busy running a business for that the chances are that
your site is not doing what it should do.
What if you are thinking about starting a business that supplies physical
goods, but you have not yet done so?
Once again, there could be no better time to think about doing so (and
therefore no better time to be reading this book) because despite the
phenomenal growth of online business over the past few years, we are
only scratching the e-commerce surface at the moment.
There seems little doubt that in the next few years, there is likely to be
a global explosion in e-commerce as potential consumers become more
accustomed and comfortable transacting business online.
There is an awful lot to think about when you are considering taking
your business online, an array of questions and alternatives that you
need to address before diving in. This is a given, but it is not something
that you need be too concerned about, as I am going to analyze and
discuss these aspects of e-commerce as we move through this book.
Lets start by considering why taking your business online is such a
good idea, and why there has never been a better time to do so than
now.
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