The ecommerce retail market is increasing and is taking a new business dimension as reported in the US Census Bureau News August, 2006, article titled “E-commerce retail in the second quarter 2006 estimate increased 23.0 percent ($26.3 billion) from 2005 while total retail sales increased 6.6 percent ($984.9 billion) in the same period.” Ecommerce retail sales are still only 2.7% of overall retail sales in the US. This represents a great opportunity to increase your company’s revenue through online sales.
So you are a retailer who wants to sell online? But, you don’t have the resources to launch an online retail operation by yourself. One option that you have is to outsource the development of an online operation to a company that specializes in doing this. This will help you stay focused on your business while you open up another sales channel.
The difficult part about outsourcing is who should you contact?
Before you start looking for an outsourcing partner, you must define:
- What should you expect an outsourcing company?
- What are you expecting from your business online?
- Do you want to sell online or just have an online presence?
- If you chose to sell your products or services online, what kind of sales strategy will you need to implement?
One of the biggest mistakes companies make is to look for the cheapest way of setting up an online store such as using a freelance web developer. This is a BIG mistake and WRONG strategy!!!! As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. A freelancer is more economical upfront than a professional company. However, following are some freelancing scenarios you should consider before you go this route:
- An undergraduate or graduate student who is trying to make some extra money during his studies. If you hire this person, what will happen when he graduates? Will he continue working for you as a freelancer? What will you do if he decides to leave your online business and he’s the only one that knows everything about your website?
- An independent who controls your entire website. What do you do if this person gets more clients and is no longer able to make your website a priority? What if he or she disappears and you can’t reach them anymore? What if he or she gets sick and isn’t available to take care of your site?
These are very important issues to consider for your online business. You could lose more money through one of the scenarios listed above because of not wanting to pay for professional website management assistance.
You use professional services for your offline business. Why should it be any different with your online venture?
Martin LEMAIRE
www.webmanagementgroup.com
