Published on August 18, 2010 Online retailling set to soar
Reports in The Australian of a record 41% profit-rise by online car retailler carsales.com.au is an indicator that in spite of the recent tough economic times, the online economy is set to boom in coming months.
The Carsales website reported a profit of over $18 million to the end of June 2010 with advertising revenue of $107 million and the company is predicting similar growth over the rest of the year. The outtake? Now is the time to start thinking about launching an online shop – before your competitors do.
While not everyone is going to be making millions of dollars from their online website, what profits like these do show is the potential of the online market in a number of industries that are relatively untapped. Every day we see hundreds of good ideas that could easily be as successful as Carsales that are thwarted by time constraints of their owner or money to invest in marketing and promotion.
It’s a reality of any business that a great idea is one part of the puzzle, but you have to do the groundwork of building up your entire marketing mix. Your shopping cart and website design is one part of the mix, but you must also think about what your competitors are doing, your policies, your processes, your prices, your promotional strategy and marketing communications, your packaging, the whole marketing mix.
If we could give one piece of advice it would be to plan. Set realistic targets for your business. Don’t be sucked into the hype and expect your business to get instant traffic, or ride the wave of more consumers coming online. The reality remains that even with more people shopping online there is still a lot of education to be done in the market. People still think that if they put their credit card details into a website that the company can charge their card however and whenever they like. People are still nervous about being ripped off and security. And buying sight unseen.
There’s no dobut that the market is set to grow. How your business responds to the online potential depends on how much planning you do and how much determination you have to succeed.
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