• EuropeanMattress.com (CA) spent $5,000 on their website design, $2,800 on the online processing portion and $80/month on hosting. They had a hard time justifying the expense in the beginning, but after just 90 days, the revenue from their website was EQUAL to that of the retail store. By the end of the first year, their website was generating 3X that of the store!

2. YOUR WEBSITE WILL CUT YOUR MARKETING/ADVERTISING BUDGET considerably and give you a higher return on your marketing dollars.

• Most people do not even use the yellow pages anymore. They go to the online yellow pages and search engines. They are faster, easier and much more informative/current. Miracle Marketing Network.com paid $6,000/Year advertising in the yellow pages with a 3X5 ad. Their website Design and Hosting was ½ of their budget and they receive 2X more calls.

3. YOUR WEBSITE WILL PROTECT YOUR INVESTMENT in your company in the event of a natural/organized/accidental disaster. More inexpensive than hurricane/tornado/flood insurance AND your website generates revenue at the same time!

• As a repercussion of the September 11 tragedy, approximately 4,319 New York Companies went out of business. Many could have been saved if they had had a web presence. With a website they would have been able to communicate with their customers/clients & they would have been able to continue to generate revenue from the sale of their products & services online until they could re-establish a physical presence.

4. YOUR WEBSITE IS AN INEXPENSIVE, FULL COLOR BROCHURE…and any aspect of it can be changed in seconds for a very minute cost.

• Print Brochures are outrageously expensive and if there are any copy errors after it has gone to print, you will pay full price to have them re-printed. Making a change on your website is just as easy and quick as cutting & pasting in word.

5. YOUR WEBSITE IS A TAX DEDUCTIBLE ADVERTISING EXPENSE…AND IT WILL DO MUCH MORE THAN ADVERTISE FOR YOU

• You can use your website to distribute/display/sell products, services, flyers, newsletters, coupons, bulletin boards, menus, calendars of events, documents, press releases, etc… Your website can also gather important statistics about your prospects.

6. YOUR WEBSITE WILL LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD & CREATE GREATER CREDIBILITY, enabling the small business to compete better with larger companies.

• You will be able to express your goals, values, visions and beliefs better than your larger competitors. You can make your company look very large with the use of alias e-mail addresses. You will be able to automatically respond to your clients/customers making them feel like you are giving them special attention.

7. YOUR WEBSITE WILL ENABLE YOU TO DO BUSINESS WITH A WORLDWIDE MARKET You are no longer limited to your local market. You do not want to be the only one waiting on a local market to respond in a global economy. Even if you can only do business in your local area…you still have a worldwide market.

• Consider this: Joe lives in New York and owns rental properties in Florida. When he needs a contractor or property manager, he jumps online, finds what he needs, they send him a picture after completion and he pays them online. He NEVER moved from his living room! This is how people are doing business today. If you are not online, these shoppers will not know that you exist and they will contract with your competitors.

8. YOUR WEBSITE WILL GIVE YOU THE COMPETITIVE EDGE that you will need if you intend to survive in business during the next millennium. You will be able to recapture your market share from the competitors who have been snatching it from you. Your website will ensure your success in business tomorrow!

• If you do not use the Internet yourself, don’t be fooled. Your customers and clients do! Your competitors ARE online and they are getting ahead of you in the learning curve and stealing YOUR market. You cannot afford to wait another minute. Research shows that for each day that you are not online your competitor gets 30 days ahead of you. They are taking money out of your pocket, and they are learning more about online media each day. The longer you put this off, the longer it is going to take you to catch up! It is critical to get online NOW and get going through this curve!

9. YOUR WEBSITE WILL ENABLE YOUR STOREFRONT TO BE OPEN 24/7

• People are too busy during the day to shop the way they used to. Research shows that they go online AFTER the dinner hour (after you are closed) to find the products and/or services that they need. Your website will do business 24/7 with this market. If you do not have a presence, they do not even know that you exist, so you can expect to lose them to your competitor because you are not even there for them to choose from.

10. YOUR WEBSITE IS A 24/7 EMPLOYEE THAT CAN ELIMINATE A HUGE PORTION OF YOUR OVERHEAD

• Your website is not on the payroll & does not need benefits or vacations. You do not have to pay taxes or workman’s comp on it. It is never sick or late & it is always doing business on a professional level. It can answer frequently asked questions so your employees can stay focused on your core business instead of spending hours on the phone answering the same questions day in and day out (saves your phone bill!). It can auto respond to your clients/customers and you can e-mail them through your site FREE (cuts mailing costs). Sections of your site can be password protected so that only your employees can access it. Your website can greatly aid your HR department.
   

• BabyCenter.com made $6 million in their first 6 months online (avg. age of buyer…58yrs old)
   
• NYLaundry.com landed a ½ million-dollar account after only one month online
   
• Consumers spent $47.98 Billion dollars on line in 2002 (358.6 million purchases)
   
• Online retail spending is expected to reach $6.8 Trillion dollars by the end of 2004