Should I Start an Online Store?
Introduction:
In this article I am not talking
about ebusiness, or any aspect of ebusiness other the activity of selling
products from an online store. I am assuming that you already sell your products
from a ‘bricks and mortar’ location. This article does not apply to the sale of
services, although it can apply to the sale of tickets to events. Should you do
it? I could say ‘Yes, definitely’ almost automatically, but there a few things
to consider before you go online. The decision is not a ‘no brainer’.
Why would you want an Online Store?
If you can do it successfully, the online store can be very profitable. Why? 1) It require no building
2) It requires no staff.
3) It is open 24 x 7.
It never closes.
4) So your costs are very, very small compared to your ‘bricks and mortar’ location, and there is no limit to what you can sell.
This means profit.
Assess The Market:
The main issue is to determine the geographic boundaries of your present market, what market do you wish to address
by going online, and could you be competitive in the new market? The minute you
go online, you will face new competition. Consumers may come to your ‘bricks and
mortar’ fishing tackle store because of your personality, maybe special
knowledge that you have, but when you decide to sell the rod and reel online,
suddenly your personality is not there, and maybe you cannot convey your special
skills and knowledge in the cyber environment. Your business may become a
commodity seller, while your ‘bricks and mortar’ location may be based upon
other considerations. Further, while you may be competitive in your local or
regional market, can you say, without a lot of investigation that that
competitiveness will apply to most of the country, if not world? So you need to
rethink the entire sales process. For the purposes of this article, I am going
to assume that you decide that ‘Yes, we can be competitive nationally. Yes, we
can do as good a job as anyone from an estore’. So lets move on; what you do
from here? Next