The brick-and-mortar industry has been languishing for years. Now, more and more of them have been changing business models. Most of them have decided to go online. But, why is this happening? Here are a few reasons online has begun to beat brick-and-mortar.
Businesses Are Reaching More Clients on the Internet
When you’re running an online business, you can reach customers all over the world. You’re no longer limited to just your local community.
As a result, businesses have been able to diversify into niche markets. That wasn’t always possible because not everywhere had a sufficient customer base. Marketing products online isn’t limited to just what’s nearby.
However, even local stores have started using the internet to reach more customers. Geo-specific SEO has been one of the fasting growing segments of internet marketing. At the end of the day, we’ve seen more and more industries entering the online market space. Some of the traditional brick-and-mortar industries, such as retail, commercial office spaces, and banks, for example, have reverted to completely remote operations. You can even find an online liquor store nowadays.
They’re Able to Reduce Unnecessary Expenses
The hardest thing for most business owners is making ends meet. By reducing their expenses, they’ve been able to reduce stress on themselves. One of the most attractive features of online business would be its low overhead costs. When you’re running a brick-and-mortar store, you’ve got to pay for so many things. It’s not just the rent for retail space.
You’ve got to pay the utilities as well. Running an online store doesn’t require any of that. You’ve just got to pay for a server somewhere to host your site. Hosting doesn’t even compare to what businesses were spending to stay open. Plus, it’s not hard to run an online store compared to a traditional one.
You can keep your store open all day when you’re online. In fact, you don’t even have to pay for as many employees. You’ve got to pay for some of them of course. But, you don’t need someone manning the register.
Small Business Owners Don’t Need as Much Capital
Not only do online businesses cost less to run, but they’re also less expensive to open. As such, you don’t need a ton of starting capital to test out a new idea. Plenty of entrepreneurs have taken advantage of this to enter the online economy.
Thanks to the low barrier to entry, there are more entrepreneurs today than ever before. Lower capital requirements are even attractive to established investors. Because there’s less risk, they’ve been more willing to take a chance on something new.
You Can Scale Much More Easily
Scaling a brick-and-mortar business sounds like it’d be relatively easy. You’ve just got to open a new location, right? Well, that is basically how it goes. But, compared to scaling online, it’s still way tougher. Scaling an online business doesn’t mean you’ve got to open a new website. Simply rent some additional server space, and you’ll be good to go.
At most, you might need to hire a couple of people to run the customer service center. Doing that isn’t too hard online, either. You can simply outsource the customer service portion of your business to a third party. By doing that, you don’t have to worry about the needed infrastructure at all. Just make a phone call to set up the service. Then, you can put the number on your website.
Customer Expectations Are Shifting
Finally, perhaps the most important shift has been in what customers expect. Most customers prefer shopping online. They’re able to order whatever they’d like without ever leaving the home. That’s more convenient for them.
Plus, they’re usually able to find better deals online as well. Plenty of customers don’t even want to shop at brick-and-mortar locations anymore. By catering to their tastes, a business performs better in the long run. That’s why so many have been shifting to the online economy.
Why More Businesses Are Choosing to Go Online
Opening an online business is relatively simple. So, you’ve got to question why anyone opens a brick-and-mortar place at all? Of course, they’re not going away any time soon. But, the economy is changing every day. The future does seem like it’s going to be mostly online.
