For me, the beauty of doing my shopping online is that I can research, plan and make purchases at a time that suits me, where it suits me – and with increasing numbers of Australians doing the same thing, retail businesses simply can’t afford not to be online this Christmas.
In fact, Australian shoppers are expected to spend more than $48.1 billion over the Christmas trading period – and whilst around eight percent of retail sales influenced by online research which led to an instore purchase could be much higher.
Our research with 1,031 SMBs showed only-one-in two have a website, and one-in-three have e-commerce functionality, with majority (59 per cent) relying on the physical or in-store experience to make sales.
We know that time, money and resourcing are all factors that can influence a business’ decision of whether to get a website or not which is why we’ve developed our Online Essentials product to help SMBs create a digital presence and do more to be found in search results on Google, Google Maps and Yellow Pages. The good news is that our experts can help businesses get online or add an online store in a matter of days.
Similarly, our team can help businesses build powerful online stores that integrate with accounting platforms, payment gateways, shipping carriers and sales channels like eBay.
We recently caught up with Clementine Round from Rosenberg Shoes and Diana Eid from Designer Hair Studios to find out how being online has changed the way they do business. This article originally appeared on Telstra Exchange.
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