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How To Expand Your Small Business
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Article 7: Go Online
Thanks to the World Wide Web, even modest mom and pop neighborhood businesses can now effectively expand to not just new neighborhoods in the area, and not just across state boundaries, but they can even span the globe.
With a few exceptions (at least until government regulators and taxing agencies decide to complicate the issue), the Internet provides a much less difficult path for many businesses to go national and even to go global than do conventional geographic expansions schemes.
Not every business is suited for the Internet. But if yours is, it’s worth your while to give the Web serious consideration when seeking new horizons.
Volumes have been written on how to set up a Web-based business, and how to give a Web presence to existing businesses. There’s not enough room in this series to repeat all those options and procedures. So check out this related Success Skills Seminar:
How To Build A Web Site For Your Business.
But we can help you decide whether online expansion is appropriate for your business.
Your customers will tell you if your business can expand online. If they buy your services in face-to-face encounters, a Web presence isn’t the best way to expand your business. But if in-person contact with your clientele isn’t necessary, you may be a good candidate for expansion online.
If your product is rare or unique, an online expansion is an excellent way to gain exposure and sales to literally millions of people who otherwise would never know of your product’s existence. If your product is competitively priced, the growing comparison shopping features of the Internet may be well suited for your business.
Search engines do for products what newspaper and television ads only approximate. Web users conduct more than 200 million daily searches on the Google search engine alone. That’s a lot of exposure.
Setting up shop on the Internet doesn’t require the expensive preparation and exhaustive research involved in physically expanding a business to a new geographic location. If you want to reach people in far flung locales, the World Wide Web may be a good option.
But if your customers need to try on the trousers you sell before they will buy them, consider opening another storefront, perhaps across town or across national borders.
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