If you are new to the Internet or have heard about but not understood the meaning of e-commerce, please read our FAQ. E-COMMERCE DEMYSTIFIED
As an individual involved in the retailing of motorsport, performance or competition products you may have many feelings over the relevance of electronic commerce to your business, ranging from " I need to get online straight away" to "I'll wait until it has really taken off". You may ask the question "can it really be profitable now?" and "will it be profitable in the future?"

The answer to the former question is yes, if the site is designed and promoted well and you Company are willing to get actively involved in understanding and selling the benefits of e-commerce. The answer to the latter question is an unqualified yes!

You may also ask whether the type of goods that you sell are suitable for sale over the Internet. There are two issues here:

• You want your Website to act only as an online catalogue, where potential customers can browse through product descriptions and availability before contacting you by phone, much as they would when reading an advertisement or Company brochure. In this case the only difference when you transfer the information onto the Internet is that you pay a once only design fee and a small maintenance overhead instead of monthly multi-£1,000 magazine or printed brochure bills.
• If you would like the actual transaction to take place electronically over the Internet, with the only interaction by your employees being the dispatch of the goods, then you need to make sure that your products aren't the type where customers need to touch or try them on before they are satisfied about making a purchase. Also the goods shouldn't be so large or heavy that carriage charges become excessive. To simplify the matter one statement covers this question "if they are suitable for mail order sales then they are suitable for purchase over the Internet".

PERFORMANCE ONLINE'S MISSION

There are far too many sites around that are little more than token gestures - "we need to be on the Web so let's put our Company logo on together with a few flashing images and some rarely updated information". To be honest, this approach can often do more harm than good and it is probably better to have no website at all than to have a poorly designed one. This is why we feel that our attention to service and client liaison is at least as important as the design process itself.

Performance Online believe that for you to successfully sell over the Web an initial structured plan needs to be laid down between us. Your site is a shop window, a catalogue and a working financial mechanism that needs a totally different approach to a conventional shop.

Too often we see sites that have been hastily designed by an over zealous web designer only for them to leave the client to run it with little or no knowledge of email, order taking or the general marketing of the site. Performance Online can advise or take over the running of the site for you as explained in our services section. Information on prices can be found in our prices section.

E-COMMERCE FAQ

Q. What is E-commerce?

A. E-commerce is a much talked about revolutionary way of expanding a Company's business using the Internet or World Wide Web. The net effect is that sales are increased without resort to employing extra sales staff, expensive advertising or profit-sapping middlemen.

Q. What is the Internet?

A. This may seem a silly question but essentially the Internet is a world-wide network of computers linked via telecommunications systems to allow national or global transfer and exchange of information.

Q. How many people have Internet access?

A. At the moment the number of people with Internet access world-wide is 163 million but this figure is increasing exponentially. Well over half of these people come from the USA, with over 40% of households having access. The UK has just over 7 million people online, which represents around 13% of the population. However the gap is narrowing as more households acquire personal computers. It is estimated that there will be 12.5 million adults online by the end of this year (Source: Fletcher Research www.fletch.co.uk). The UK is expected to follow the trend set by the US, where PC ownership rose from 12.7% to 38.8% in the period from 1995 to 1999 (Source: Forrester research www.forrester.com).

Q. How is E-commerce expected to grow?

A. At the moment e-commerce in the USA accounts for around $69 billion but is expected to rise to $1.3 trillion by the year 2003 (Source: Forrester research www.forrester.com). UK e-commerce sales will reach £120 million by the end of this year and at the US growth rate will reach £2260 million by the year 2003.

Q. What is the typical profile of an Internet user?

A. Male, car driver, aged 22-30 and in full time employment (Source: The Redsquare Group www.redsquare.co.uk).

Q. Are people not wary about inputting their credit card details into a computer to be sent over the Internet?

A. Yes, there is still some resistance to this although the fears are completely unfounded - it is statistically safer to use the Internet than to give your details out over the phone. Peoples' willingness to purchase online is greatly influenced by the design of the site, whether it looks high quality and whether security measures are taken and publicised.

Q. What is the World Wide Web?

A. The World Wide Web is the collective term for the world's websites, the links between them and the various functions that allow much more than pure text-based pages to be displayed.