Ecommerce | Ecommerce News

Ecommerce and the Reluctant Business Owner

Ecommerce can be a radical departure from traditional brick and mortar business. It can be difficult for some business owners to make the move from a more traditional environment to cyberspace.

What you don't see in online ecommerce can be unsettling. Things like...

* You never see the customer.
* You may never know when a customer is online.
* You may never have to personally handle any transactions.
* You have to learn new methods of marketing because you can no longer 'talk' a customer into a purchase.
* You'll have to get used to shipping. The majority of your purchases may not even be from your region.
* The idea of marketing is similar, but is developed differently using methods that may foreign to many brick and mortar business owners.
* Web development and design can be a bit intimidating and may seem foreign.
* Managing a business electronically can be difficult for those more accustomed to a more mechanized environment.

Many new online stores look for an ecommerce package that can help them get started and manage many of the functions of an online web presence for business. It is possible many online stores would not exist today if they didn't get some outside help at startup.

Ecommerce as an extension to an established brick and mortar store may weather storms a bit more gracefully that stand alone web business startups. The primary reason this is true is that the principal business is already established and the business owner has learned to live within the boundaries of what the company already makes. The revenue from the web-based side of the business is simply a bonus in the early stages.

As with all successful ecommerce it can be a pleasant surprise to watch as the online business continues to grow. In many instances the web business will quickly outpace the original brick and mortar business.

Once sales begin coming through an ecommerce solution it can provide the motivation some business owners need to learn more about the 'mechanics' of web marketing. It is possible for a web-based business owner to take an interest in managing the details of their store and begin taking responsibility for more and more of the marketing parts of the business.

I've heard it often enough to know that there are some people who remain terrified of the computer. The reasons vary, but they all have an aversion to the computer and all argue they cannot learn how to use it.

As with everything in life it is often a matter of fearing something that is unknown. Children learn how to use the computer at a very early age and they have absolutely no fear of it. The point is we all manage what we have adapted to. It is all about deciding to learn something and then getting used to a new way of thinking about business. It can be done and it can have a great impact on an already existing business.