Expand your business horizons

Often in business when we talk about opening up new markets, we’re thinking of ways to add new products or services to our offerings. Maybe we’re thinking of expanding overseas. What we’re often forgetting is that in a country like Australia, you can open up new markets just by going online.
 
There are plenty of reasons to go into e-commerce, but one of the most compelling is the opportunity to attract new customers to your business. In Australia, most businesses that are large enough to consider opening an e-commerce store are based in larger cities (for the purposes of this post, let’s define Australian cities as those with a population in excess of 50,000).
 
Even larger retail chains really only maintain a presence in major regional centres and cities, and this means that there are large segments of the Australian population that don’t have ready access to physical retail outlets.
 
My family is from Central NSW, a farming community of about 10,000 residents that don’t have any of the major retailers any closer than a two hour drive away. I remember growing up with family members planning shopping trips to Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne – setting aside entire weekends for the task.
 
These days ordering online makes things so much easier, but unfortunately many Australian retailers are yet to catch onto the fact that they can grow their businesses by reaching out to regional Australians and bringing their business to them.
 
When planning your first steps into e-commerce, don’t forget that you can quite easily open up new markets, right here at home. All you need is a well planned and built site, a targeted marketing campaign and a willingness to look over the horizon.