Uk Sme Ecommerce In Profit
Martin Burns
Member info
User since: 26 Apr 1999
Articles written: 143
It seems that the greater accountability that SMEs demand from their web site is paying off - a survey commissioned by eStore vendor Actinic (Caveat Emptor of course - it's in Actinic's interest to show SME eCommerce being profitable) reports that 72% of SME eCommerce sites are profitable.
SMEs with profitable sites are keen to build on their success (and presumably SMEs without profitable sites are very keen to make changes to get into profit): 61% of sites plan further development, mostly redesign, improvements and expansion.
If you're selling into this market, there are lots of other useful nuggets in there, such as
50% of respondants reported increased sales or market coverage
. Of course, if you're a buyer in this market, beware of self-selectivity and that answers are self-reported data - but you'll already know
how to lie with statistics (
UK Edition).
Read the full report
Martin Burns has been doing this stuff since Netscape 1.0 days. Starting with the communication ends that online media support, he moved back through design, HTML and server-side code. Then he got into running the whole show. These days he's working for these people as a Project Manager, and still thinks (nearly 6 years on) it's a hell of a lot better than working for a dot-com. In his Copious Free Time™, he helps out running a Cloth Nappies online store.
Amongst his favourite things is Zope
He's been a member of evolt.org since the very early days, a board member, a president, a writer and even contributed a modest amount of template code for the current site. Above all, he likes evolt.org to do things because it knowingly chooses to do so, rather than randomly stumbling into them. He's also one of the boys and girls who beervolts in the UK, although the arrival of small children in his life have knocked the frequency for 6.
Most likely to ask: Why would a client pay you to do that?
Least likely to ask: Why isn't that navigation frame in Flash?
