What are the pros and cons of Internet Marketing??

Friday, April 3rd, 2009 at 12:46 PM

Throughout these few months, I oftenly heard people asking “What are the pros and cons of starting a business online?” , “Why Internet Marketing, instead of doing business using the traditional ways?”. Through my experience, I had found out a few advantages and disadvantages on doing Internet Marketing.

The advantages of starting an online business compared to traditional ways of doing business are as shows: -

1. Low Start Up Cost: There are a lot of things that need to take into considerations when comes to traditional ways of doing business. Things like find a suitable location to setup a stall or to rent a shop lot. Then there are renovation and decoration costs that need to take into considerations, etc. While doing business online, you don’t need to consider too much, all you need is to invest on a computer with an internet connection line, then you are ready to do business online. Clearly this shows that the start up cost for online business is much more cheaper than starting business using traditional ways.

2. Able to Grab Global Customer: In traditional ways of doing business, the owner can only get walk-in customer that physically present to the shop or stall to make purchase on product and services that he/she (owner) is providing. Meanwhile, online business will able to let you reach each and every corner of the world by just a single click, provided the country have internet access.

3. Able to Run Business 24/7: Throughout these years of research, I found out that online internet business is the only business that will be able to run 24 hours a day non-stop. This means that, even though the business owner is sleeping, but his/her business is still running on it’s own!!

4. More Spare Time: Once the business is up and running in the internet, the owner do not need much time to manage it, just leave it and let it run automatically. Therefore, the maximum time that the owner need to spend on business is around 1 to 2 hours only!! Meaning to say, we do not need to quit our daily 8am to 5pm job to do online business. However, if the business is growing bigger and bigger, then you might consider quit your full time job and focus on the online business.

However, there are also disadvantages of online business compared to traditional ways of doing business are as shows: -

1. A Lot of Competitor: Due to internet access is very common nowadays, the business that you setup in the internet will need to compete with a lot of competitor around the world. Often customer will ask: I can get the same product and services from A, B, and C store, why should I get it from you? Because of this, you must be special, and unique, so that customer will be able to differenciate you from other competitors out there and buy from you.

2. Make Business Have Being Isolated Feeling: An online business transaction is being made without the proper face to face meet between the owner and the customer. This could make you feel that being isolated and very inward. For those who like to social and meeting with new people, this could be a very difficult thing to be done through internet business.

3. Hard to Tell Whether the Seller is Lying or Not: There are lots of scam outside through the internet, which their targeted victims are newbies in internet. Therefore, buyers need to carefully select their seller before making an actual purchase, to avoid from unhappiness incident happened.

These are only some of the advantages and disadvantages that I be able to come out in this short period of time. Hopefully I can give you some idea on “Whether it is Worth YOUR Time to Start An Online Business?” Cheers~