Is there anything as powerful as the internet? It has brought down governments, businesses and aided in major civil unrest. Look at the revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa as governments fall and people are mobilised by the internet and social media. Twitter and Facebook campaigns lead to advertisers boycotting The News of the World, so it was unceremoniously dumped by News International. The riots and looting in Tottenham that have spread throughout London were primarily organised through twitter. This is truly power to the people, whether it be a force for good or bad!
Contrast that to the good the internet can do for politicians and businesses, for example look at how Barrack Obama used the internet to raise funds from hundreds and thousands donors for his presidential campaign. It was the largest funded campaign ever and the majority of it was collected a few dollars at a time online. Then there is the rise and rise of online fashion retailer ASOS.
What can independent retailers learn from this? For me it is ‘ignore the internet at your peril’. Online retail sales are the one constant positive in a gloomy retail market, for example in April online sales rose by 12.5% compared to UK retail sales that were up 4.6%. Consistently ecommerce posts healthy growth figures that helps prop up high street retail figures. There are businesses that believe they don’t need an ecommerce site. This is so frustrating on many fronts, for example how many times have you been in a store and seen something and not bought it, only to go online later that day and buy it. There are hundreds of reasons for independents to set up an ecommerce business. And when speaking to independents there seems one overriding reason for not being online and that is FEAR. It is now easier and cheaper to set up an ecommerce site than ever before.
For example, Cybertill clients can manage their ecommerce site directly from the EPoS system. They can add and remove products simply by ticking a box, and the stock levels are all in real time so you only ever sell what you have in stock. This also removes the ongoing cost of having someone manage your site for you. This is just one way of creating an ecommerce site as there are many, many more options. Today, there is no reason why an independent retailer cannot be online taking advantage of the world wide web.
