Local Or Global E-commerce Business
One of the first decisions an e-commerce business owner needs to decide is whether they will experience more success as a local or a national business. There are some e-commerce businesses that make millions of dollars in the local market, that would make very little in the global market.
Dating sites, entertainment websites, B2B sites, and Palliative care networks are just a few of the businesses that can reach unimagined success if they keep their business local. One of the biggest mistakes that most e-commerce business owners make is believing that every web based business must be global.
Choosing the wrong arena can destroy a businesses potential.
Choosing the right business can spell unparalleled success. Marketing
The final primary blunder most ecommerce companies make is poor marketing. The over anxious and ambitious business pours money into all kinds of irrelevant marketing areas. Even down to paid listings in Search engines ? which are totally useless because the first time a search engine finds your link, it indexes your site.
Most of this advertising is not even presented to the population of the country to any relevant degree. It is amazing how many Pay Per Click advertisers pay for clicks to China or South America because that owner has an English section on their website. So, an ecommerce site is paying clicks for visitors who can never buy their product, let alone pay the exorbitant shipping fees involved.
Even spamming all the websites with similar content will not help. For example, a website that sells romance books does not want to appear on a romance writing website, or a dating website, but they do. This is because PPC advertising matches websites and advertisers who share keywords, not because they have similar interests.
To a search engine, romance ? dating, and romance ? novel, are close enough.
Knowing where you are paying for advertising, and who is seeing the advertising, is important for both global and local businesses. However, a local business will experience much less waste.
A business on a budget should consider staying local. The likelihood of every advertising dollar reaching a potential client is much higher with local businesses.
Customer Power
Word of mouth is great marketing. The more global an e-commerce business, the less customer power they have. A local business with a mailing list of 200 clients who are talking about the business is more powerful that the same business with clients in Australia, Canada, China, The United Kingdom, and areas like Malta.
Customer power does have a monetary value. It can launch a business that doesn't have enough money to run a large advertising campaign.
The global business will need to invest an incredible amount of time to build the same customer loyalty base as a local business can build rather easily.
Income Bursts
The net fluctuates. Your business can be the top of the search engines one month, and completely off the scales the next. Your site may have 10 000 inbound links this year, and only 2000 next year.
Your product can be unusual and hot now, and over marketed in five months.
Global businesses also need to deal with shipping costs, slow service, country boundaries, and other concerns can make shipping difficult and slow.
A global business should expect to make money in short bursts. They may make $10 000 this month, but they will only make $1000 next month. The local market is less volatile.
Expanding
An e-commerce presence can expand the potential customer base to several million. This may look attractive, but the competition is vast. The local market may not have any competition, while the global market may have 200 000 competitors fighting for each customer.
That said, global e-commerce markets are less affected by economic climates. Australian e-commerce is experiencing above normal financial returns from US and UK orders. China is starting to open up. The US market is loosing its appeal, while the number of phishing and fraud sites in the UK are turning people away in droves. Despite that 85 million dollars are spent on the Internet every day.
Social Network
The biggest mistake that many ecommerce businesses make is by building a 'brochure' style website. The days of a 'web presence' are long gone. Now 'social networking' is the way to succeed. Social networking is the practice of becoming a real person on the net.
It is not selling, or getting your product out there. It is the task of getting on a website or blog like www.communati.com and www.writingup.com and becoming a real person who can be trusted.
Then, let the people in your network find their own way to your buy-now page. It is also about collecting names. The most important aspect of meeting people on the Internet is to collect names that can be used to build a newsletter or marketing campaign.
Do not try to sell these people. Instead, give them information and keep them posted. This will keep them 'connected' until the day when they are ready to buy. The decision to be local or global depends on the money available for advertising, the time invested into social networking, and whether the business owner needs a steady income or can manage some dry times while they wait for big payouts.
Mark Walters is a third generation entrepreneur and author. He offers free training and investing videos designed to speed you towards financial independence at http://www.cashflowinstitute.com/videosignup.htm