Are Small Businesses That Don’t Have Websites Hurting Their Business?

Alesha Vaughn

Cindy Brown

ENG3113

16 November 2015

Are Small Businesses that don’t have Websites Hurting Their Business?

Small businesses need websites to be competitive with larger businesses, to reach a wider customer base, and to meet the needs of armchair shoppers. In this day and age everything is being done through computers and internet and people are starting more and more to look for products and services through websites. So I think it is very important for businesses, especially small businesses, to have a website to help their business. Small businesses do not get as much attention as big businesses do, so having a website will help them gain more attention than not having one.

The term "Small Business" differentiates depending on the location. In fact, it has a range from 15 employees in Australia, 50 employees in the EU and under 500 employees in the US (Global, 417). They might also be classified according to other factors such as net profits, sales, etc... Small Businesses are therefore more suitable to internet marketing, because they can niche into the marketplace. A niche market being the subset of the market on which a specific product is focusing (Imhoof, 2013).This is why they are most of the time convenience stores, restaurants, small-scale manufacturing, hairdressers, layers, accountants, and so on. But, they can also be online businesses such as web-design agency, programming, or online retailers such as aftermarket car-parts sellers, clothing, etc... Reducing costs having a website significantly decreases the operating costs. Depending on the type of business, it might lead to no leasing costs concerning the rental of premises, no or low inventory costs and no or low employee costs wages, benefits etc (Web Hosting, 2013). The main advantage about having a website is that it can be created and hosted for $8.95 per month (Web Hosting, 2013). For those who want to go for the...