If you’ve ever thought about starting a small business, you may have thought about renting retail space, and using it to sell products or to provide various types of services. And while that sort of business still has its place in today’s society, there is no doubt that the majority of small businesses today are of the Ecommerce variety. In fact, my childhood friend Mia Hart, who lives just an hour south of me in San Jose, California, proudly owns and runs her own online sex toy business with the help of her husband Matt, to great success. Although you may not realize it, Ecommerce is truly ideal for small business owners for a lot of different reasons.
The biggest reason is that it leverages the most often-used technology: the internet. People go on the internet all the time, whether that are at work on their work computers goofing off during down time, at home on their personal laptops in the evening, or literally any other time given that mobile phones now have direct access to the internet as well. With everyone always on the internet, it is the perfect place to reach as many people as possible and to ultimately sell them your products. Unlike a brick and mortar store in which you can only sell to people who live in your area and actually visit your physical store, online businesses can reach people all over the world.
Another benefit to Ecommerce businesses is that you typically don’t need to rent out space to run your business, which ends up decreasing your business costs pretty significantly. Since you don’t actually need a physical store to draw in customers, there is no need to purchase retail space, instead just running your entire business in the comfort of your own home. And in terms of inventory, you can just as easily leverage extra space in your home to store you inventory rather than buying office space to hold everything. And if you do end up having to rent out space to store your inventory, then that actually means your business is thriving and you are highly successful and need the extra space, which obviously isn’t a bad thing!
In addition to being able to leverage your home to save money on retail or inventory space, using your home to run your Ecommerce business will also save you a lot of time as well, by avoiding any sort of daily commute. Rather than driving to and from your home and place of business every day, all it takes to get to work with an Ecommerce business is for you to get out of bed and open up your laptop. Given that most small businesses typically require a lot of hours put in each and every day to really get the business off the ground, being able to save even just 30 minutes each day by not having to commute anywhere is clearly a huge benefit.
While I know just how hardworking and ambitious Mia is in general, there is no denying that running an Ecommerce business in particular has contributed to the overall success of her sex toy business. In a world where the internet dominates everything we do, it is no wonder that Ecommerce businesses have the advantage in terms of attracting customers and ultimately making sales compared to other types of businesses. Add in the fact that they also naturally save you both time and money by allowing you to run your business right at home and it is easy to see why Ecommerce businesses are so great, especially for small business owners who need the competitive edge!