2012 Perception Survey

We have just completed a survey of attitudes to websites and how various small businesses consider and believe their web presense affects their business.

This report was for internal use, but we felt some of the information would be interesting to a wider audience.

Thoughts

In a recent survey undertaken by us, it was revealed that the majority of Small to Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) view their website as an expense, which they try to minimize. The survey also found that very few (less than 10% of those surveyed) consider their web presence to be of little to no business use.

This result implies that the majority of businesses understand that the website is an important tool for their business but do not fully understand how to make it work for them.

Results

A sales assistant can only sell to one customer at a time. Online you can sell to thousands at a time.

Consider the following, a single employee working in a retail environment, who is earning £6.08 per hour (this is the national minimum wage) in a single 7.5 hour day is paid £45.60 per day or £319.20 a week. This cost is accumulating regardless of the level of sales. This sales assistant can only deal with one customer at a time, but an online system works for a fixed cost and can handle literally thousands of customers simultaneously. As a cost per transaction, online systems are very cost effective.

Perhaps you don't sell anything, but need a 24x7 brochure for your customers to access, which provides company and product related information. The ability to keep this up to date in an on-demand world is priceless for the reputation and image of your company. This facility is also available for only pennies a day.

Conclusion

Be online, be visible and save.

The appropriate use of web technologies can both save significant sums of money while simultaneously boosting the profile and desire of customers to the products and services available.