BlogSmall business, Marketing, Promotion and Web Design

This is the reading trends of my Google Reader. As you can see I haven’t been reading much lately. But January is usually a very bad month for web traffic. Sales are low. Additionally, everyone is worrying about the upcoming recession, feds acting on it and so on and so forth. So people post a lot less, too.

This, however, brings up one important aspect. With pessimistic outlook on economy and less and less disposable money – will Americans start more businesses or less? Would they sit on the money waiting to spend – or take a risk of investing in  hot areas while others wait and loose? Hard to say at this point as panic is still upon us and stock market.

These are the features ranked according to the number of top 500 retailers that are using them (as per Internet Retailer Magazine):

1. keyword search
2. daily/seasonal specials
3. enlarged product view
4. what’s new
5. affiliate program
6. advanced search
7. online gift certificates
8. rich media
9. outlet center
10. email a friend
11. coupons/rebates
12. top sellers
13. site personalization
14. alternative payments
15. store locator
16. wish list
17. customer reviews
18. catalog quick order
19. mapping
20. product customization

Interesting enough as well that most consumers (according to Forrester) are willing to decline paying for “flare”:

Fewer consumers are willing to pay for extras such as gift wrapping, or overnight delivery.
(26% of respondents said they would pay for expedited delivery prior to the holiday season, down from 45% who said they would do so in 2006.)

Generally, what this means is that consumers want to get their purchase faster, easier and with less extras then before. For most of the prospective clients that call us, top five requests for web site are:

1. Large pictures/ability for visitor to enlarge product image
2. Search engine optimization/marketing
3. Ability to quickly add and remove inventory items
4. Ability to post featured/for sale items
5. Ability to use various discount codes to track promotions

It is obvious that trends for small and large businesses are almost the same. The slight difference is attributed to overall approach to ways of doing business for small business owners and large retailers.

Starting a small business is not a simple business. Depending on whether entrepreneur is a refugee or a risk-taker, the choice of what kind of small business to start could be difficult. My personal choice even transformed. When I was starting a small web-hosting business I had no idea what I will be dealing with. Clients were the least of my concern, as frauds, spammers, scammers and other inventive people were trying to make money on my business. Mainly because of that I have decided to migrate to web design and web development – not even because I am a web developer myself.For people who are afraid to take a risk of an unknown venture there is an easier road to success – buying into franchise. As thousands of franchise opportunities exist on the market today the only problem that remains is that of a right choice. Fortunately, there are a lot of resources available both online and offline (Entrepreneur magazine is one of my offline favorites). Do your homework, research your franchisor, talk to franchisees and make a decision.

Oh, yeah, and Starbucks is not a franchise. Or I wouldn’t be doing web design.