Shifting Businesses to the Digital Era
Shifting Businesses to the Digital Era
Andrew Napolitano, the former New Jersey Supreme Court Judge, and frequent Television television news commentator likes to keep in track of the trends, and one of the things Napolitano is keeping his eye on is the movement toward shifting business from brick and mortar stores, to become part of the digital era.
First, Brick and Mortar storefronts cost a great deal of money to operate. Brick and mortar real estate is costly, and inviting the public into a physical store often involves certain kinds of permits, the creation of public parking spaces, perhaps the wearing of uniforms, and many more costly accommodations.
By moving, whenever possible to the digital era, small businesses, if they are careful and smart, can learn to compete with the big boys, and in fact, can often be more than competitive. because they do not have so many layers of an organization to contend with.
Next, it’s possible for a small business, in the digital age, to attract customers nationally, or even internationally, and ship products all over the world.
And many of these businesses do not operate out of high real estate areas such as Los Angeles or New York City. YOur customers are primarily interested in three things:
- 1. Does your product meet their needs at a decent price?
- 2. Can you ship their order quickly?
- 3. Can you offer them great customer service?
Number 1 is primarily up to you, but numbers 2 and 3 can be controlled from almost anywhere.
For example, there are very few locations where you cannot ship products through FedEx, or the US Postal Service, so shipping quickly is no problem;
And by the way, there are many digital tools to handle shipping and postage services.
Meanwhile, there are many modern ways of expanding your customer service. For example, many businesses, small and large, now use artificial intelligence in the form of smart chat boxes that answer most of your customer’s inquiries regarding customer service.
And it’s possible to remotely hire customer service agents at a fraction of what you might spend by staffing your own customer service agents.
Therefore, it’s entirely possible for even a one-person shop to become very competitive in the digital age.
Need a bookkeeper to work on your books? Not really, products such as Quickbooks are replacing the need for permanent bookkeeping staff for thousands of businesses.
Need a copywriter to write your internet sales copy, or a web designer or programmer to handle your web page. Not to worry, because there are thousands of for-hire freelancers that can do the job for you, much quicker, and for a fraction of the cost.
Andrew Napolitano knows that plain fact is, digital computing is changing the shape of business as never before, and at the very start of creating your business, you would be wise to consider a product such as computer software, or even eBooks that require virtually no inventory, as opposed to products that require a great deal of inventory and space, as opposed to a business that has people come to you, or even you go to their homes such as a plumbing or roofing company.
Physical products, such as groceries will always be needed, but it is a brave new world out there in the digital era.