If you’ve been wondering whether the cost of taking your business online is worthwhile then here’s the answer: yes, it is worth it and will increasingly be worth it. In the U.S. alone ecommerce sales are projected to break $414 billion dollars by 2018. Not only are people using the internet to do more and more of their shopping, they’re using it to find out information about places before they make a decision on where to travel. The number of places people can look for reviews on hotels and restaurants is continuously growing. People also expect places like restaurants to have full menus with prices online as well.
Having a quality, responsive website that works on PC and mobile devices does more than just let consumers buy your goods. It is a platform which allows you to market new products and advertises deals that you’re having either online or in-store. The best part about this is because you already have the website you don’t need to pay extra for this advertising. A strong website with lots of relevant content will also rank highly when people do a search for a product on it. This in itself is excellent advertising for your company and will alert potential customers to your existence. Online shopping is here to stay and will only continue to grow.
People love to eat out and try new food. With the internet people like to look online before going to a restaurant they haven’t been to before. In the past, word of mouth would often be the best advertising for a good restaurant, but now people are scouring various webpages for reviews on a restaurant they haven’t been to before. They also want to know how expensive a restaurant is before showing up. While this may seem like extra effort for a restaurant it is once again a great way to advertise the business and alert customers to specials happening at the restaurant.
While it is fairly common already for hotels to display what rooms they have available it isn’t as common for restaurants to display whether reservations are available for certain days and times. This is something restaurants could benefit from doing and they could also keep a timer on the homepage which would display the time to wait to be seated. This would allow potential customers to quickly find out if the wait time is too long without them having to drive over or trying to call.
As we become a society which is always on the go and looking to find information in the most expedient and efficient manner possible the importance of quality websites rises. The hotels and restaurants that get online and have good websites will reap major benefits.