Essay Example on Small Businesses: Take it Online for a Broader Market Reach

Introduction

Small business is in continuous need of a breakthrough into a broader market to market their brand. Using the traditional method such as physical infrastructure to attend to a group of customers within a specific location leads to a slow growth rate hence reduced profit margin. Adopting online ecommerce is a significant trend in establishing a small business idea to a vast potential market. Taking a business online is, therefore, a first option every small business needs to adapt to address a more significant market within a shorter period. The paper discusses the primary reasons why each small business is entitled to take online marketing.

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Firstly, adopting ecommerce exposes the business to a broader customer base than the first approach. Ecommerce is associated with significant customer flux potential. With the existence of SEO platforms and CMS inbound technique, every business can become a potential powerhouse. Some of the largest companies such as Amazon started as small shops, but once an online platform was established, the outburst is notable large businesses operating globally. Through the presence of underlying history on companies which has grown large by using the ecommerce platform, it becomes possible for other small businesses to have a high potential of serving a large market (Barsch 2019).

Secondly, following the current trends, most customers prefer ecommerce to other primary shopping methods. The current statistics indicate that at least 36% of total Americans shop online. During mega holidays such as Christmas, the number of online shoppers rises to over 61% in NewYork City. Considering the number of individuals who have a history of having shopped online, the number can be observed to increase rapidly. This creates an excellent opportunity for any market to adopt online shopping due to ready market availability and the existing market trend (Ferreira 2020).

Thirdly, Ecommerce is characterized by lower labour and Tax Costs. The main challenge for growing business is protocols for expanding the business. High costs in both tax and employment tend to grow as the small business trying to expand their earlier business. When setting up a new business idea or expanding the earlier business by establishing more warehouses or operational physical structures, the cost incurred is usually high. However, using an online platform, business owners are presented with Golden opportunities to reach their potential customers without experiencing any overhead costs (Kumar 2020).

Adopting the Ecommerce platform is more comfortable to complete and implement compared to establishing physical structure. By examining the total requirements for creating an online store, the total cost is generally low compared setting up a physical store.

However, adopting online platforms has several limitations. It is challenging to attract the right customers. Most individuals carrying out online shopping are likely to use the online ecommerce to search relevant items and use social media platforms to discuss alternative items to purchase. This makes it extremely difficult to establish a strong customer base. Setting up customer attraction method is exceptionally challenging hence affecting the successfulness of the ecommerce platform. Other limitation includes customer retention on ecommerce. Customers shopping online are dynamic, which makes it difficult to maintain specific customers.

Despite adopting ecommerce having challenges, its resultant benefits are higher. Every growing business needs to set up an online store to move with the current trend and maintain a competitive marketing environment. Due to the overhead cost experienced in setting up physical infrastructure, adopting ecommerce platform is the best alternative for growing business.

Elements of Digital Business Strategy

Different businesses adopt several strategies to run their businesses. However, the standard digital business strategies entail nine key components. The elements of the digital business strategies purpose only to ensure that a company remains competitive in the market. The section will focus on the aspects of digital business strategy.

A business should extend its processes and transactions online. The online presence helps to determine how and where in the market a business ranks. It also determines how the competitors view your business. The online presence means that a company can conduct its transactions through a website, social media or advertisements. A mobile application can also be used to represent all the processes undertaken through a business website. Major companies like Netflix, Alibaba, among other B2B transactors depend on performing their businesses online (Leischnig, Woelfl and Ivens 2016). However, customers should be keen to avoid clicking on malicious spam and content created by online attackers.

Digital marketing is an element of digital business strategy. It also ensures a business is present online; in all online platforms. The feature helps to promote a business via the use of online tools and resources. The online tools include search engine marketing, blogs, mobile banner ads, and guest blogs, among other resources. The purpose of digital marketing is to reach a broad audience and be able to sell online (Leischnig, Woelfl and Ivens 2016).

An example is Alibaba as it allows customers to purchase whatever they need from any place. Digital marketing aids to reduce internal processing time and allows a company to focus and emphasize on other vital transactions. Unwanted blogs and ads can be created, and clients should be careful when enabling to transact online.

Another element of digital business strategy is allowing customer interaction. Customers should be given a chance to do reviews and leave comments after transacting with a business. Customers should be allowed to interact with the company via mobile devices, social media, having customer comments section in business websites, among others (Sia, Soh and Weill 2016). Enabling customer interaction assists a customer to find services more quickly. Alibaba allows customers to rate the products offered by clients after receiving them. Customers are also entitled to recommend to other clients.

Online security is also a vital element in digital businesses. It is quite essential, especially to the SME who conduct their transactions online. The data and information stored in the servers while doing business online is their virtual assets and should be secured. Policies, rules, laws and regulations are employed to emphasize online security successfully. The suppliers to one's business should also be accessible in most online platforms. Another element is operating mobile-based solutions (Brown and Brown 2019). They enable mobile commerce, where business transactions are conducted via mobile phones using relevant applications or via mobile websites that are accessible and can be scaled down to mobile phones. The mobile apps can be either aimed at customers or to internal members; the staff.

All the business should be carried out and made efficient through technology. A company should use the right resources involving hardware and software. Through enabling efficient technology, a business would be in a position to process faster and in return, satisfy the clients (Brown and Brown 2019). Cloud computing which is a trending resource in all fields, would not miss being applied in digital business. It allows a company to enlarge; transact in multiple geographical places without installing expensive infrastructure.

An example is that since Adobe moved its services to the cloud, it has been able to grow. Since 2013, its revenue has been on the increase yearly, portraying that it has developed. In 2018, Adobe paid tax totalling $2.20 billion, which is a remarkable amount (Brown and Brown 2019).

However, the elements to digital business strategy show that most companies undertaking online transactions rely on online activities which may jeopardize an entire business in events of a security breach by online attackers. digital marketing should evaluate all loopholes that can arise to the strategy in place. Ecommerce enables the digital marketing and therefore security in the diverse ways of its implementation should be maximized.

References

Barsch, S., Bollweg, L., Lackes, R., Siepermann, M., Weber, P. and Wulfhorst, V., 2019. Local shopping platforms-harnessing locational advantages for the digital transformation of local retail outlets: a content analysis. https://aisel.aisnet.org/wi2019/track06/papers/5/

Brown, N. and Brown, I., 2019. From Digital Business Strategy to Digital Transformation-How: A Systematic Literature Review. In Proceedings of the South African Institute of Computer Scientists and Information Technologists 2019 (pp. 1-8). https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3351108.3351122.

Ferreira, J., Santos, V. and Malta, P., 2020. Potential and Advantages of Social Shopping in Portugal. In Marketing and Smart Technologies (pp. 125-136). Springer, Singapore. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-15-1564-4_13

Kumar, S., 2020. Advantages and challenges of e-commerce in the Indian Banking System. Studies in Indian Place Names, 40(3), pp.4064-4071. https://archives.tpnsindia.org/index.php/sipn/article/view/1041

Leischnig, A., Woelfl, S. and Ivens, B., 2016. When does digital business strategy matter to market performance? https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2016/ISStrategy/Presentations/13/

Sia, S.K., Soh, C. and Weill, P., 2016. How DBS Bank Pursued a Digital Business Strategy. MIS Quarterly Executive, 15(2). http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&profile=ehost&scope=site&authtype=crawler&jrnl=15401960&AN=115879196&h=OnTFV7IOx%2FySeDQ4dv82EHCv96QonvoBtBIcFmmNwkPhLaiOgXBnSDQKcgzT73MIhHCsJAzGCEM0MsPqTewjuw%3D%3D&crl=c