Think about this. You are planning to engage in “eCommerce”,
to take your business online. So, you need to learn a new set of business
rules, a new way of doing things, because online business is “different”, right?
Well, actually, no, not really. You still have a product or
service to sell. You still have a store with a shop “window” (your website) and
you still need the customers to visit your store, in order to buy whatever, it
is that you are selling.
The only major difference is that (continuing the analogy)
your local store window can only be seen by a small group of people, whereas
your online business can be seen by the whole world. By engaging in eCommerce,
you can take your business “global”.
For many businesses, this is truly an advantage,
representing a wonderful opportunity.
But that is not the case for everyone, particularly for
companies who sell a physical, tangible product. When planning to go online,
therefore, you should spend some time thinking about your product and exactly
who your target market is because this will be a crucial factor in determining
whether your venture is a success or a failure.
What it is that you plan to market on your eCommerce enabled
website, and who will want to buy it? Some products will, by their very nature,
not be totally suited to a worldwide market. Pork based food products, for
example, will not be popular in Muslim countries, nor will wine, whisky or
beer. Sales of open-toed sandals may be disappointing in Iceland, Greenland and
the frozen polar North.
Secondly, give very careful thought about how you will get
your product to the customer. For example, if you were to make laser toner
cartridges in Asia (as one of my client companies does) there is absolutely no
sense in trying to sell one or two cartridges at a time to a customer in the
USA, because of the cost of delivery.
So, if your product is bulky or heavy, selling outside your
locale may not be practical.
Furthermore, you need to consider that, whilst most
countries use the same Standard International Trade Classification (S.I.T.C)
codes for deciding on how much import duty to levy on a particular product, the
actual duty to be paid varies from country to country, and such variations can
(and will) lead to disputes. Again, using my client as an example, they sold a
consignment of toner cartridges to a customer in Finland, which got held up in
Customs for several weeks on arrival in Helsinki, because of a dispute over the
Import Duties to be paid.
Whilst this was not the fault of my client or his customer,
nevertheless, the result was an unhappy customer, who obviously did not become
a regular customer.
Likewise, if you plan on selling a service online, can that
service be provided outside your local area in such a way that you still make
money? Do you need to have one of your own staff actually work with the
customer (in which case, you need to stay local) or can the work be easily
subcontracted on a global basis? Would it be easy to find such a local
subcontractor capable of supplying your advertised service in such a way that both
you and the customer are happy? How much would such a subcontractor cost?
Unless you can get positive answers to all of these
questions, then, again, it may pay you to keep your services local, rather than
overreaching, in order to become a global player.
The simple truth is that, whilst the global nature of the
internet allows you so sell to the whole world, it is the nature of your
product or service that will ultimately decide whether this is practical for
your potential customers, and profitable for you, or not.
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