23 March 2006
By - Paul Taylor
Lets start off with some figures.
60% of UK homes now have internet access, Almost half of these access the internet Via Broadband – and these figures are rising every year.
70% of UK businesses have internet access, with many employees using the internet at work for personal use.
In the 10 weeks run up to Christmas 2005, £5 Billion was spent online. This was a 33% increase on the year before. Predictions are for a staggering 36% increase in 2006. The average spend per shop during this period was £208.
Also, 92% of first time visits to a website are via searches performed in search engines.
So what does this mean?
Obviously online shopping is on the increase. More and more businesses are developing and setting up online business. These range from large chains, to single store outlets, and even to the home entrepreneur setting up a small online store to earn some extra cash.
But isnt it really expensive to set up a store?
The cost of building an online store can be high. You quite often require the services of a professional web developer to integrate your payment systems, as well as the catalogue and product management.
You could always go down the route of buying an off the shelf e-commerce package. There are plenty around, and cost a lot less than having a custom site created for you. These packages are usually installed on your computer, and allow you to manage a product catalogue, and upload to the website. However, you need a degree of skill and experience to use these packages. If you are un-familiar with FTP and buying a hosting account, and setting up a website, then this probably isnt ideal for you.
Is there a better way?
There is indeed. If you are starting an online business with a small budget, or you want to try out an idea before committing to the development of a fully custom e-commerce store, you could always try Web Beads LITE. Web Beads LITE is a cut down version of our Web Beads Enterprise Edition Content Management, E-Commerce and web site management tools.
For a low cost of £39.95 (pcm ex VAT), you could have an online store making you hundreds of pounds a month. Simple to setup, and no technical knowledge required, it really is the best option to get you started.
Does it work?
Yes. We have clients from all industry sectors, with varying levels of technical knowledge using Web Beads LITE on a daily basis to manage their online business. You can have a look at a few of them here:
http://www.matthudson.org - Matt Hudson is an internationally renowned Neuro Linguistic Programming practitioner. Matt uses his Web Beads LITE site to sell places on his courses, as well as his DVDs and CDs.
http://www.buy-in-cape-verde.co.uk - Your Home Abroad are a successful foreign property specialist, currently operating in Bulgaria and Spain. They wanted to try out the market in Cape Verde, so they used Web Beads LITE to create an intermediate site before they developed the full website. The response has been so huge that Your Home Abroad have decided to keep the Web Beads LITE site, with no need for the full custom website to be developed.
http://www.thestudiocooperative.co.uk - The Studio Cooperative are a collection of media agencies working together to deliver a larger pool of resource and skill to their clients. The Studio used Web Beads LITE to manage their online presence so that members based in different offices around the country could contribute to the website.
How do I sign up?
You can sign up in minutes by going to http://www.webbeadslite.co.uk. Simply enter a few basic details, and select the package you want to use, and thats it, start building and using your website.
Can you help me get started?
Certainly. We offer some additional services to help you out, if your not quite ready to take the big plunge on your own. Web Beads LITE contains a suit of standard web site templates for you to choose from. If however none of the templates suit your needs, we can design you a custom template. Also, if you would like us to do the initial build of your website, we can do that also. We offer a hand holding service which will get your website up and running in no time.
Custom Template Design £150
Hand Holding Service £250
find out more
If you would like to know more about Web Beads LITE, please dont hesitate to contact us on 0191 211 1955 or look at the website at http://www.webbeadslite.co.uk
Figures from IMRG - www.imrg.org