Benefits of Having an Online Presence for Your Business Essay Example

Benefits of Having an Online Presence for Your Business Essay Example Benefits of Having an Online Presence for Your Business Paper Benefits of Having an Online Presence for Your Business Paper The different benefits a business may receive all varies with different aspects, such as the size of the business and what kind of business is being run. For example, a small organisation may want to buy it stock from the internet which will drastically reduce the amount they have to pay and the amount of space for the storage of these supplies. However, a business that is already online such as Apple would like to increase their number of customers, sales and profit. Market Presence A lot of public and voluntary sector organisations use the internet to widen their profile and to get more people to be aware of the services they provide. This is a very popular way of promoting their organisation. The benefits of trading using online means are very simple. Global Presence The presence is on a global scale as the webpage used for the company can be visited or viewed by anyone in the world, from any country. This will productively increase the amount of customers, potential sales and promotion for the business. Small companys benefit from this the most. 24 Hour Visibility Unlike shops, websites are on all the time, non-stop 24 hours a day seen days a week so it can be visited at any time which is very helpful, plus this is really good on a global basis as different countries have different time zones. Equality of Presence Regardless of Size of Business A customer who visits online services doesnt judge the company whether its small, medium or large but instead judges on the quality of service, the attraction of the site and on how easy the website is to use. So on paper, a small business can be a strong competitor for medium and large businesses and can even attract more customers. Rapidity of response to customer interest You can respond to a customer quicker when having an online webpage, but it is not been used effectively by some organisations. Websites can provide new, quick and easy ways to contact their customers. An important part of this feature is quick replies. Statistics show that online customers expect very fast responses to their messages and orders. This is good customer service. If the company does not respond or takes too long to reply this can make it very unpopular and lose it potential customers and sales. To insure this does not happen companies can hire staff for this specific task or it can use an automated system. Opportunities to analyse Online Competitors It is much more simple and fast to spy or see how and what your competitors are doing online then actually going to the store to compare your business to theirs. Long before a business has gone online it should check out the online webpages of all of its main competing businesses. So you can see the layout of their webpage, the size of it and what it has in it. This is to ensure your webpage is to a similar level or even better. Also take in mind your competitors can also spy on your company once you are online. The task at hand is to get your webpage at the top of its game and to keep it there. Marketing Benefits This is the advantages receives for knowing more about its customers, contacting them more rapidly and more simply and offering every aspect to their customers needs. Collecting market research information from online enquiries There are a lot of ways were companies can retrieve users information from its website: Using log files and cookies: Both of these methods collect data using the usage of the site by the users, this can provide the business with very important marketing information. Users can block cookies so there not accepted but many sites refuse to work without cookies. However, all sites produce log files. These are files made by the web server that hosts the website. They give information like how many people have visited the site and how long they visited the site for. Website activity software: This produces more information from the log files. It can also tell you which search engine are the best at attracting customers for your business. They can find out using website activity software, which is the favourite of the pages and which one is least liked. Registration and order forms: Many sites ask users to register or make an account; this is so they can access users information. They also offer users an extra thing if they agree to receive regular emails from the site for example a special offer on an item. This offers the site owners with valiable information about the user that they can use. Access to new markets When taking your business online no matter the size of your business, you will be able to grow to reach a wider range of potential customers. Remote locations The internet has become a new way of buying with out the need to exit your home. This means customers can purchese wanted items from the comfort of there house, no matter how far the shopping centre is, this provides those who live in locations which are almost blocked out such as, the islands around the United Kingdom have a much larger selection of goods and services to be provided to them. Customers with travel difficulties People who live in urban areas, have cost problems, mothers with young babies and even the elderly find it very easy to order online as they have difficulties traveling around to get what they need or want. So buying online is their favourite choice especially when the weather is not particulary good which many times is the case. Poor Transport links In many areas, especially small rural areas, the bus services are hardly available or they are really bad and train services are almost unseen or used. While in special moments using such services should be worth getting most amounts of time quick and easy online purcheses are much more painless and time consuming. Customers with disabilities and can not travel at all will find shopping online a very important invention as this makes it unbelivably easy for them. Access from a wide range of devices Modern day technology has made it easy to shop from anywhere on the go. Smart devices such as internet phones or PDAs or Pocket PCs have provided customers an even simpler and quicker way to shop from absloutly any where and any time. Level of response The speed of a companys response and how many customers they can respond to at one given time have factors which affect it such as; Sales features This can either mean home delivery, delivery to a different adress then the buyers or the option to pick when you as a customer want the item to be delivered. Access from a wide range of devices This would mean making the site with different servers to support multiple devices not only PCs. This would mean making it smaller and easier to use in handheld devices such as mobile phones and ipads or other advanced technology. Access out of business hours Help pages which are previously written to answer the most asked questions, or a blogging page where customers can answer each others questions and help each other, would mean that customers can get 24 hour assistance daily without the need of a member of the staff team being in attendance. Access from around the world Business who plan to sell globaly or plan to provide services on a global scale can do so in a quick and easy way online and customers can access the information they need from anywhere in the world. Rapid response to orders and enquires Email services and the usage of customers needing to register means the responce can be far more quick. Websites that sell such as ebay, not only use email providers to message you they also have there own messaging service which would mean far more quicker response and the chance of the customer spotting it a lot more higher. Online order tracking Postages can be tracked and followed on a real life time map which follows the journey of the delivery of the customers order. This is done by attaching a tracking device or chip to the postage. Customers can follow this progress on either partner websites or the website having there own application which shows them this information. Financial advantages Improved cash flow through fewer bad debts Less thefts and tricks can be used if it is online. As the customer has to provide the debit or credit card details before purchase and the money is taking off accordingly to the delivery of the item in the b2c transactions you will not have to worry about not being paid or being tricked as much. Freedom of low-cost location Having a complete online business will mean you can have your delivery head quarters or base in cheap locations. For example, HMV and Tesco have theres in Jersey which has lower tax then the one in the UK which means they save money. Lower overheads The amount of staff needed are much more less in an online business, so less pay checks will mean more money for the company. Online companies use call centres to help customers even these can be automatic and previously recorded. This can greatly save a business in cost. Rapid payment To be able to purchase items online you need to make payments quickly, one click payments. This will mean a business can govern there money and control there cash flow with more ease and it will disable the need to loan money. No expensive cash handling The seller doesnt have real cash to deal with instead the money is transferred from the buyers account to the sellers bank account. This will protect seller against fraud or theft and make it easier to sort your money out plus the cost of storing the cash out is removed. Ease of entry Making your entrance into a new and a wider scaled market is far easier online. The internet has provided small business with huge posibilities to grow like the big organisations and it offers them the chance to compete with them and maybe get further and more larger then them.