The website industry has grown a lot. The quality of web pages is better, the number of websites is larger, the standards, security and all other important signs for a future growth are also visible worldwide. Doing business in virtual, web environment is now something that millions do every day. As a result of this, running a dot-com enterprise has become a traditional way of doing business for many people in the western societies. And it has spreaded out around the world within the last five years.
There are a few very important reasons which allowed web based business to grow worldwide.
No Borders?
The first one is accessibility. The national borders do not exist on the web. Even it still important where do you live, this is not a significant obstacle for anyone that want’s to start a web based enterprise. Castro’s government had prohibited Cubans from using computers by making the possession of a PC illegal. But those who want to work on the web still are able to find a way to connect to Internet. It is not convinient to use a basement-based slow dial-up connection but you still can get connected.
Of course even there are no real borders on the web, doing dot-com business is still something that has to comply with certain regulations. Let’s take a look at web hosting for example. If there were no strict regulations over spamming, adult and illegal content, the web hosts would face hard times these days. The total amount of SPAM messages sent every day is very huge, but can you imagine what would it be without strict antispam law. If you need to find a web host that would allow you to send tons of commercial messages, to host an adult web site or to manage any kind of guerilla web activities, you’ll see that most of those providers are based in countries which have lax regulations which apply to the web. And those countries are among the worst places to do business.
Financial Services For Web Business
Being able to send and receive money from any place around the globe is the second most important thing which made possible for a small town home boy from any country to do online business. I remember that in 2000 I was in search for an online merchant provider that would allow my Bulgarian based customer – a web design studio – to accept website payments. At that time my native country didn’t have a financial structure that would allow its citizens easy to do online business. There were no real Merchant accounts, except the local monopoly, and PayPal as well as the most well-recognized payment solutions didn’t work there.
So it took me a two weeks or even more to find Regsoft, a company that provides third-party merchant services and e-commerce solutions for businesses outside North America and EU. The other option was probably the world’s most popular online payments’ provider 2Checkout. Can you imagine how happy my clients were, when after taking a week of gloomy view about their perspectives to do online business, we finally found someone that would allow them to accept payments through their website? The 10% merchant fee of their total volume of sales was not a thing they wanted to dispute.
Realibility And The Low Costs Of Infrastructure
Today it is more than easy to find an inexpensive shared hosting plan or to get a dedicated server at low cost. I bought my first dedicated server in 2003 from RackShack (now “The Planet”). Only four years last since then but in web perception of time, those are a whole century. My first dedicated server provider changed its brand twise for this time. It became EV1Servers and then after an acquisition changed again, this time to The Planet.
The cheapest server at RackShack in 2003 was priced at $99/month and there was a set-up fee of $100 or similar one. Now the cheapest economy machine at The Planet, comparable to the one I got five years ago, costs $69 per month. That means that anyone who wants to start website business now has to pay at least 30% less than I did for my first dedicated server. Those who want to get a shared hosting plan now are even in better position. They have to pay 3 times less than they would in 2003. The average price of a reliable shared hosting service then was between $12 and $15 per month. Now it is between $3 and $5 per month. It is good to be a dot-com business newbie in 2007.
Standardized Solutions
Bringing more standards to online business was one of the best things that happened to the website industry. SSL certificates, strict e-commerce guidelines, anti-fraud policies, and customizable web site solutions are more than welcomed by anyone. The average price of a start-up website business project dropped to less than $500. Now the better conditions and the lowered costs of doing business bring every day many new enterprises on the web.
The perspectives that web industry, in any levels, faces within the next few years are more than excellent. They are exciting for sellers, for buyers and for anyone who uses the web to entertain themselves or just as a reference tool. The boom of social networks, VoIP and all other new communication techniques makes web a whole new world, which becomes second life for most of us. And it even became real life for many.