Expanding Your Business Online

There would come a time that an offline entrepreneur would think of expanding his business online. But something stops them because they think expanding their business online is a cost consuming thing, but this should not be the case. Expanding your business online will provide you with a lot of advantages. These advantages are not possible or unlikely if you are selling using conventional methods.

Here are some advantages you will get by expanding your business online:

- Widens market potential
- Immediate interaction with prospects
- Lessens the "time to market" for new products
- Enables you to reach globally
- Compete with larger businesses and operate 24 / 7, sharing information about your business, your products and services accessible anytime, even days, nights and holidays.
- Give customers direct access to sales literature at no additional cost.

Expanding your business online is not as easy if you do not have any experience as well as knowledge on the right things. To make your business expansion online a success, you need to have a deep understanding of the intricacies of selling on the Internet. You have to consider things from product presentation to customer fulfillment, doing business on the internet can add some complexity to your existing operations.

Below are the some steps you need to take to make the transition or your expansion online as smooth (and as successful) as possible:

1. Envision your goals and set them.
If you plan on expanding your business online you also have to decide on how you want to use the Web. The internet has a lot of purpose; it can serve as an online brochure for your company or product presentation. Your prospects and existing customers can go to your online shop and get information about your product and services, and they can either call you, visit your store or office to place the order. A simple informational site is good if you just want to tell your customers of the products that you offer. You do not have to think of the complexities of an e-commerce operation.

Once you have decided on expanding your business online you should have a clear goal of what you want to achieve.

2. Think differently
Remember that a traditional business is way different from an online business. In a retail store, a likely client who enters and looks around your display shelves may stay for a few minutes, allowing your sales clerks enough time to talk to the customer, address their concerns or respond any questions they may have.
With an online shop, however, a prospective customer can hit the “back” button immediately or as soon as they decide that your site is not at par with their expectations – e.g. perhaps your site is loading up too slow for dial-up, too cluttered to navigate, etc. A worst case scenario is that they are already shopping on you site but then they abandon their cart without giving you any reason for their decision to stop the purchase.

3. Make sure that your product is suitable for an online store.
Before you go spending a fortune in developing your web site (which is a requirement when you expand your business online), you need to know that not all products or services sell well on the Internet. What sells well on the Web? Studies have shown that the following are the characteristics of products that are suitable for the Web:
• Digital products
• Products requiring lots of information
• Products that do not need to be handled or tried on
• Products that are difficult to find locally

Expanding your business online from the traditional type must be planned carefully, implemented and monitored to enable continued efficiency. The profile of a business that is best suited to the online environment includes those that have a distinct product or service portfolio that requires little manual invention to facilitate a sale. Ideally they will have a fixed pricing policy that applies to all customers and have products or services that have a predictable lead time in terms of delivery.