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The number of internet users is growing rapidly in Bangladesh. Since the introduction of 3G services, the internet penetration has been growing at a fascinating speed. By the end of 2014, internet users grew from 35 million to nearly 44 million. In 2015, we had 10.5 million additional internet subscribers in Bangladesh. Of the 58 million active internet subscribers, nearly 96% are on mobile and 10 million use smartphones.
But, to our disadvantage, many small businesses in Bangladesh failed to notice this change coming or did not consider taking advantage of this trend. Little do they know that an online presence can help take their business to the next level.
According to data from Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, the number of internet users almost doubled in the last two years; it shot up from 30.48 million in 2013 to 58.31 million in February 2016.
This is an incredible opportunity to business who can easily reach out to this huge population with a web presence and by adopting a different marketing strategy.
What follows is a list of advantages a small business can have by going online and taking advantage of the internet.
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Get noticed
Nowadays, when someone wants to buy a product, they just Google it. They can find out where it is available -- different brands, prices, and quality- to get the best deal. When a business entity is not present online, its products -- no matter how great in quality -- go unnoticed by online users.
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Credibility
By putting up its information such as address, mission and objectives, and product details, a business can gradually establish credibility because a lot of people nowadays value the online presence of business. Without a website, customers get an impression that the business might be very small and does not deserve attention.
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Go global
A website is the most effective tool to get more customers and create a market for the products worldwide. Internet Live Stats assesses that the number of internet users in 2016 is 3.33 billion -- which is 40 percent of the world's population.
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Size does not matter
A business website not only earns credibility but also creates a larger-than-life impression. This is good news. A small business can even beat a large multinational company in the Google Ranking if it runs a good website with the latest technologies that draw larger crowds with high-quality content.
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Access is the new ownership
Unlike a real-world office, a business website is up and accessible to customers 24 hours a day. Customers will always get to know about the products and services on, allowing them to know about a product whenever they like. Businesses can even have a 24-hour product sales mechanism online.
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Better experience, greater satisfaction
Customer satisfaction is vital for any business. Through a website, a business can always collect data and get customer insight, feedback, reviews, and problems, and address those issues accordingly.
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Know your customers better
Finally, I think there are two reasons why most small businesses do not have their websites: firstly, many of them do not even feel the necessity of such websites and secondly, they think such initiative is very costly.
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I have already explained why having a website is important for a business. While many people think a website is an unnecessary and often costly but building a small business website is not at all costly. Such a website, which will have your vision, mission, address, contacts and products or services list, would have 10 to 15 sub-pages. It's not at all a costly complicated affair to launch such a page.
Then again, you would off course want your web page visitors to become your customers. How do you do that? In my next piece, I will focus on how to turn your web page visitor into your customer and that customer to a happy customer.
Data source: BTRC
