202 • 100 GREAT BUSINESS IDEAS
- The internet is increasing interactivity among people, companies,
and industries.
Online selling is immediate, and enables businesses to reduce
costs, while improving marketing effectiveness. The Economist
Intelligence Unit, an international publisher of business information
and part of the Economist Group, has successfully developed an
online business that is seamlessly integrated with its products and
overall approach.
In practice
Several fundamental steps will enhance online sales.
- Generate participation, ownership, and commitment within
your business. - Ensure that your internet selling strategy is all-embracing
and dynamic, continually evolving, and learning from past
experience. - Simplify the customer’s experience so that the sales process is
streamlined, with barriers to purchasing removed. - Ensure that your website is sticky and compelling. Customers
need to remain at your website (known as “stickiness”)—your
competitor is only a click or two away—and you need to ensure
that customers come back time and again. - Focus on fl exibility and personalization so that customers are
empowered to buy exactly what they want, their way. - Avoid duplication and a complicated, high-cost approach when
an effective, low-cost alternative is available.