What more evidence does one need to prove that the future of business is online?
What a grim start to the year high street business has seen here in the UK following the collapse of Jessops, the camera retailer, Blockbusters UK, the Video Rental Shops, and HMV, the Music Retailer.
High Street camera retailer Jessops has shut all of its 187stores in the UK, resulting in the loss of about 1,370 jobs.
Blockbuster having given 31 stores notice of closure is to close 129 more stores after it went into administration earlier this month. The chain has 528 stores and employs 4,190 staff. Deloitte, the accountancy firm running Blockbusters, said 760 staff are now facing redundancy, but the closures are not taking place immediately. The administrators have previously said Blockbuster UK would keep trading while it tries to find a buyer. Seems anything could happen now.
On January 15th HMV, which employs 4,350 people, announced it was putting itself into administration.
In these challenging times, it seems the High Street is now being decimated and only new and fresh business ideas are going to work. To me the gap is being filled by entrepreneurs building businesses online. The internet is the way to go.
In fact a great example is demonstrated by another high street retailer, Argos. 42% of Argos’ business is now done online. Other companies to have launched online shops include clothes retailer Next and the John Lewis Partnership. They are taken themselves more out of the situation of standalone retail outlets to having full blown website ecommerce shops.
The momentum to online sales has been evidenced even more by Argos who closed 75 stores so as to shift their focus online turning their stores more to a supporting role.
Argos say they “will develop its online, mobile and tablet channels to be the primary outlet for communicating with customers. Stores and catalogues will remain important but their roles will be adapted in order to support a digital offer.”
Without a doubt, these are challenging times for retailers, with the last two years in particular having given us a series of gloomy news stories. But this to me offers exciting opportunities to the smaller business prepared to put it all in online.
New technologies offer fantastic opportunities. The business world is changing, and fast. The online opportunity is as much defined by our ideas, knowledge and intellectual resources, as it is to profit from trading in real products and tangible assets.
They just need the confidence to turn their spark of an idea into a growing, thriving business. Internet based businesses are perfect for those of you who can think big. The Internet can become the lifeline of any business. To me Passion is your path to profit, and when you therefore bring something you’re passionate about to your business and build your own brand online around the right model you’ll be on to a winner. I call this the Power of Passion, and you’ll be seeing much more about this on this site really soon.
The phenomenal growth in online sales can only grow, and everyone can make the most of the opportunity. The current trends show that the use of the Internet, smart phones and the confidence of the people in using their credit cards online is growing. So don’t miss out! The future of business is online, so can yours be.
