It seems that most successful businesses these days have web sites,
even businesses that service only certain geographic areas. On the web,
where the market place is global, localized businesses can be at a
great disadvantage.
A Local Business Web Site Example
Lets use the example of a car cleaning businesses. The business only
cleans cars in a specific city, yet wants to use their web site to
create more business. Time and money is invested in marketing the site
in the search engines, paying particular attention to marketing the
site for the specific geographic region the service provider covers.
Nonetheless, many visitors from around the globe are likely to stumble
across the site if it is well marketed.
Offer Non-Geographic Specific Products and Services
If a local business does not offer some sort of product or service that
is available to the global market, than these web visits are wasted.
The solution is simple. Local businesses that expend effort marketing
their web site should also consider offering additional products or
services that can be purchased by the global market.
Product Options
Options for our example - a car cleaning service - could include
T-shirts, hats, cleaning cloths, wax and/or soap. Even just T-shirts
could be an additional source of revenue, whereas the seller benefits
not just from the direct sale, but the advertising the wearer of the
shirt will provide.
Drop Shipping Makes Offering Products Easy
To the busy business owner, offering additional products for the sake
of web sales may seem like an extra burden rather than a hidden source
of revenue. Yet adding products to your web site can be very easy. By
using a drop-shipper, inventory is not required. Services such as Café
Press allow products to be made as they are ordered.
Affiliate Systems
Also, if the site owner does not wish to deal with inventory and
stocking products, affiliate systems can be used for revenue. Affiliate
systems allow site owners to signup for revenue sharing programs with
other companies. An affiliate program allows site owners to offer the
products or services of other companies while getting a commission on
sales generated from the site owner’s site.
In short, if you run a business that operates on a local basis only,
and also maintain a web site, it may be well worth your while to expand
to the global market by adding products or services that can be sold
around the world.
