Small businesses missing out on millions of pounds in potential sales – are you one of them?

We love our stats, here at BT Tradespace. That’s why we recently commissioned the Voice of Small Business report to find out how small businesses conduct their business on and offline.
Being the ‘webheads’ we are, it came as a surprise to find that 56 percent of small businesses still prefer face-to-face interaction to interacting via the web. But that’s not all, we found that while a huge majority of respondents we surveyed (300 UK businesses) have their own website (80 percent compared with just 60 percent last year), only 3 percent believe it’s important to interact with their customers through it!
But the main shocker was that nearly two thirds (60 percent) of small businesses do not sell their products and services online and are therefore missing out on billions of pounds (£20 billion-a-year to be exact) being spent online!
Journalist Helen Loveless of the Daily Mail, recently reported that ‘in a tough economic climate, experts believe it is increasingly important that small firms look to the Internet to help sustain and expand their business.’ The same article quoted Stephen Alambritis, chief spokesman for the Federation of Small Businesses, who explained security as being one the main reasons for this lack of take up. He also urged small firms to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the Internet.
Luckily, the news is not all bad! The Voice of Small Business also reported that one in five small businesses now use social networking websites. And websites are playing an increasing role in communication and marketing strategies for small businesses.
The stats reflect a definite shift in the trend towards social networking and media – with 18 percent of businesses blogging for business. However, there’s still a gap when it comes to using online for business vs online for personal use. 67 percent did not believe they would find customers online even though more than two thirds (69 percent) shop online at least once a month!
So… are you one of the businesses missing out on billions being spent online? Or are you still wondering how to interact with your customers via the web?
Change the way you work your business online -
- Sell your products and services on BT Tradespace at little cost.
- Update your blog to begin talking to your customers.
- Find new customers by keeping your Tradespace alive with new content and be found on Google
- Use the communities to grow your leads!
Whatever your choice, whichever way your look at it – with 32 million UK consumers shopping online by 2011 (source: Forrester, UK eCommerce Forecast 2006-2011, March 2007) – your customers are headed online but are you?
Read the full press release and download the report.