| Myth: All
I Have to Do is Create A Website, People will Come to My Website, Buy My Goods
or Services, and I Can Sit Back and Collect the Money. |
Fact:
If it were only that easy! There is nothing magical about an Internet Business, no special formulas.
The fact is, most of the same factors that make a successful On-line business
are the same factors that lead to successful with traditional businesses.
- A good business
plan and marketing strategy
- Excellent Customer
Service
- Understanding
the unique demographic and psycho-graphic factors that are in your market place
(in this case, the market place is the Internet).
- Offer a reason
for people to buy from you rather than your competition.
This does not imply
that there are no advantages to an Internet business. More often than not, it
is easier to get an Internet business up and running with less startup costs and
operating expenses. In addition, the Web can allow you to grow your traditional
business by taking advantage of the Internet's unique features. From
Browser's To Buyers
and Customer Oriented Website
explore the Internet's unique features and how to use them to grow your business.
| Myth: Doing
Business on the Internet Is a Waste of Time. No one is really making money or
growing their business. |
Fact:
Many businesses and organizations, both large and small are benefiting from the
Internet. The fact is, that e-commerce is currently enjoying a growth rate of
over 145% with sales topping 36 billion dollars (source: cyberatlas.com).The
Internet offers several unique opportunities for businesses:
- Instant Access
to Information About Your Company's Goods and Services.
- Better Customer
Feedback though response forms, on-line discussion and focus groups.
- A Business that
is highly adaptable to your customer's needs.
- Services that
are not possible with traditional businesses. such as customer reviews of products
and services, or computer generated suggestions of products based on customer
preferences.
- Sell Your Product
24 hours a day, 7 days a week from the comfort of the customer's living room or
bedroom.
| Myth: Taking
Credit Cards Over the Internet is Next to Impossible for A Small Start Up Business. |
Fact: Actually,
unless you have bad credit, getting a Merchant Account in order to take Mastercard,
Visa and American Express is not that difficult. It can, however, be daunting
trying to find someone who can offer you a merchant account. Most banks and financial
institutions do not offer their small business customers merchant accounts for
"mail order" or "on-line" sales because they consider these
high risk. You can find many companies offering this service but it is often expensive
or complicated to setup. Also, there are unfortunately some "fly by night"
operations that only stay in business long enough to take your substantial deposit.
With this in mind, we have decided to offer Merchant Accounts through ............
a well known card processing service. Of course, we are here to stay, we have
been providing Internet services to many satisfied customers since 1992 ! Click
Here to find out more about obtaining a merchant account through us.
Myth (Version
1): If I Put a Site on the Information Super Highway, I will have Instant
Access to Millions of Potential Customers.
Myth (Version 2): I Put Up a Site On the Net and Nobody Come. Only Huge
Sites with Big Budgets Enjoy a Large Volume of Traffic. |
Fact: "Build
it and they will come" may work in the movie Field of Dreams, but not on
the Web. Building a website and putting it on the World Wide Web is analogous
to putting up a billboard on a highway covered with billboards as far as the eye
can see. On the other hand, version 2 of the Myth is also false. True, many people
do spend a lot of time building their website only to find that no one is looking
at it.
But the fact is, that with some work, you can drive a moderate amount of traffic
to your site. On our servers, there are, unfortunately, sites that enjoy little
or no traffic. There are also sites that enjoy over a million hits a month.
There are many ways to drive traffic to your site. Some are traditional and some
are unique to the Internet If you are trying to expand your traditional business
on the net, one method is to promote your website in your traditional advertising.
Alternatively, you can use Internet based methods. The most expensive is Banner
Advertising (typically $20 to $40 per thousand page views with an average click
through rate of 0.5% to 2%). Less expensive methods include reciprocal links with
other companies offering complementary services and of course, optimizing your
site to increase your search engine rankings. For some simple tips on increasing
your search engine rankings see our series on website
design.
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What is Involved 
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