Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving is associated more with spending time with your family than spending cash at stores – but the latter is probably a close second these days. We all know of black friday. “Black Friday” gets it’s name from being an indication of the time of the year when retailers begin to turn a profit – they get “in the black”. While according to Wikipedia, this wasn’t the original meaning, it’s what most people understanding it to mean now.
After Black Friday comes Cyber Monday. While Black Friday gets most of the attention, Cyber Monday is no small fry. Digital shopping is on the rise year over year and is a big component of Black Friday itself. Black Friday online sales topped $1 billion this year and is expected to be over $1.5 billion on Cyber-Monday itself. There’s more:
Through the first 23 days of November, online spending has brought in more than $13.7 billion, which represents a 16% increase over 2011, when $11.8 billion was spent during the same period. Online spending on Thanksgiving Day also increased to $633 million, up 32% from last year.
As a business, if you don’t have a way of selling your product or services online, then you are probably leaving some money on the table. Online shopping is big and growing.
You can always start by selling your product through other already available sites and services. Sure, they’ll take a percentage of your profit and/or charge you subscription or miscellaneous fees but it gets you online and making sales quickly with little to no technical know how or setup time.
For a more serious professional approach, get your business a dedicated website. It can be more of a brochure website at first. Use it on your marketing materials and ensure it has information on what your business does and how potential customers can reach you to make a purchase.
Even better would be to connect your website to a payment gateway so you can make secure transactions online and set up your e-commerce.
Which ever approach works for where you are in your business, make sure your business has a digital footprint that can create and direct sales opportunities then start marketing your business through multiple avenues so you can get a slice of that sweet digital sales pie.
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