E-commerce: how it’ll improve
your business

While many areas of the economy are experiencing record losses, e-commerce is one of the few sectors of business that are still seeing growth. According to eMarketer, the US Department of Commerce reported that online sales grew by 13.4% in the first quarter of 2008 when compared to the last quarter of 2007. Can your business afford to not be taking advantage of this growth opportunity?  

What is e-commerce?
Essentially, an e-commerce Web site is the buying and selling of goods and services via an electronic medium such as the Internet. The Web is a great source of business because of accessibility to a wider consumer base—there is a market for just about any kind of product and service.

Having a strong presence on the Web is no longer an option, it’s now a necessity for standard business practice. With an e-commerce Web site, virtually all limitations on a brick and mortar business are lifted—your store can now remain “open” all the time, and your customer base is now open to anyone with Internet access.  Expedite Media Group will design an e-commerce site that will be reliable, professional and simple to navigate.

The benefits of e-commerce
There are numerous benefits to e-commerce. The most obvious benefit is that with an e-commerce Web site, your store is never closed. Your customers have the ability to browse your inventory and purchase products at their convenience 24 hours a day, and 365 days a year.

E-commerce also gives you the ability to expand your customer base. You’re no longer limited to the people who live within the area around your store—people from all over the globe can purchase your products and services via your Web site.

How e-commerce works
The majority of e-commerce Web sites that are on the Web are driven by an online database. Database driven Web sites, alsoknown as dynamic sites, provide content such as products, prices, product descriptions and images. With the use of an administration tool, the Web site owner is given the resources to add, update or change content and images in a quick manner. The tool allows the Web site owner to change content whenever they see fit, and at any time of day and any day of the year.

Regularly updated content helps to drive repeat visitors to your Web site. Updated content can include new products and inventory on an e-commerce site, archived newsletters, event listings, product updates and do-it-yourself project ideas and methods. Expedite Media Group has the capabilities to append these features to your existing Web site, or we can custom create and design a Web site entirely tailored to your database needs.

Expedite named to the Inc. 5,000 list

What is the Inc. 5,000?
The team at Expedite Media Group received word last month that we are named to Inc. magazine’s Inc. 5000 list for 2008. Described as “the most influential business club in America,” the list, which recognizes the fastest growing companies in the United States, is comprised by 5,000 companies nationwide.

How does a company qualify for the Inc. 5,000?
Inc. magazine ranks companies based on their percentage of revenue growth, with the companies with the highest percentage of growth being placed at the top of the list. To be named to the 2008 list, companies had to be generating profit within the first week of 2004 through the last week of 2007, which would require qualifying businesses to produce sales numbers within the designated four year period.

Furthermore, each company had to be based in the United States, privately held and independent, meaning that they were not a division or subsidiary of another company between the beginning of 2004 and the end of 2007. Also, revenue in 2004 must have been at least $200,000, while revenue in 2007 must have been at least $2 million.

What does this mean for Expedite and its clients?
The list places Expedite Media Group in the company of such businesses as MemberHealth, Cedar Point Communications and Massage Envy. The Inc. 5,000 is a list of the elite—a mere sliver of the more than seven million companies in the U.S. that have employees. All of us at Expedite feel that this impartial benchmark is recognition and proof that our hard work has paid off.

We’ll also have the opportunity to attend the 2008 Inc. 5,000 conference in Washington, D.C. in September, which will be packed with great speakers and educational sessions. While there, we’ll also have the opportunity to network with and learn from our incredibly influential peers.  We’re then going to take that acquired wealth of knowledge and improve our technology solutions and customer service—we’re positive that this is something that we’ll all be able to benefit from, including our clients.