Why should you have an online store?

Selling products and services online can have major advantages for businesses, leading to increased profitability and lower costs.

Selling online has a number of advantages over selling by conventional methods, including:

• Making savings in set-up and operational costs. You don’t need to pay shop assistants, rent high-street premises, or answer a lot of pre-sales queries.
• Reducing order-processing costs – customer orders can automatically come straight into your orders database from the website.
• Competing with larger businesses by being able to open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• Being able to receive payment more quickly from online transactions.
• Attracting customers who would not normally have investigated your type of high-street outlet.
• Improving your offerings using the data gathered by tracking customer purchases.
• Using your online shop as a catalog for existing customers.
• Global marketplace – Your web site can be accessed from anywhere in the world, which now means you could sell to anyone ANYWHERE.
• No middleman – By selling directly to the customers you can now cutout the middleman.
• 24 Hour business – If your web site can process payment information you can now be open 24 hours a day!
• Increased customer information – Instead of posting your latest brochure or clients account statement, why not allow them to access it via your web site?

The Internet can open up new avenues for your business to buy and sell products or services online, with such activities generically referred to as ecommerce.