Starting an E-Business

Many businesses face the challenge of keeping up with advancing technology to remain competitive. Many have expanded to the internet, even while maintaining a local shop to reach a larger customer base. In order to effectively evaluate whether a business should venture into e-commerce, a SWOT analysis should be performed.

A SWOT analysis is a “strategic planning method used to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats involved in a project or in a business venture. It involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieve that objective.” ( http://en .wikipedia .org /wiki/ SWOT_analysis) For a local clothing store on the Jersey Shore boardwalk, here is a sample SWOT analysis:

Strengths: A key strength would be the ability to compete with other companies globally as well as locally. When the peak season for Jersey Shore tourism begins to decline, having an internet business may help keep business profits up by selling to customers in different biographical locations will still need your retail items. Another strength would be to lower overhead costs. By expanding your business to the internet, you can reduce labor costs, rent costs, electricity costs as well as inventory costs by only ordering and supplying what is being sold. (Ecartrev, 2007)

Weaknesses: Because customers won’t be able to gauge the size of a company or their work load, customers will tend to demand the same level of service from a business with 1-2 employees as they would from a company with hundreds. So If an product is not received in a reasonable amount of time or a response to a question is not received, it may lead to the customer not being satisified. Because the business is online, many business owners depend on the search engine to direct customers to their sites. If the search engine is unpredictable or doesn’t put the business near the top...