Small Business Taking a Small Clothing Store

Small Business

Taking a small clothing store to the online world is a bold proposition. There are a few strengths that this store can draw upon to help it succeed. The first is the name recognition of the Jersey Shore -- people actually know where it is now and that will help the store by putting it into some context. (We will assume that the context is good, at least for our target market). Another strength is that rent in the area is relatively low, compared with larger urban centers along the Atlantic Seaboard. This means that the store has room to expand once sales exceed the capacity of the existing premises. That said, there are a few weaknesses. The store is small, and therefore has no brand name of its own. For people to buy from the store, they must first reach the website and that will not happen without an upgrade in the brand's profile. Another weakness that needs to be addressed is that the store has no experience in online retailing. Online retailing is highly competitive and the industry leaders have tremendous experience and technological expertise, things that our small store lacks.

However the Internet is rich with opportunities. Chief among them is the ability to access the global market from a single location. This has long been the chief draw of small business to the Internet, and for good reason. We live in a world where you can buy T-shirts from designers in Beijing to go with the shoes you ordered from Italy. The sky is the limit for any retailer that is able to develop a successful strategy online. Furthermore, the Internet is a low-cost means of expanding one's reach, compared with opening additional outlets (Martin, 2011). Another golden opportunity is that the store can sell through other online retailers. Amazon, for example, has an online retailer partnership program that can help drive sales to our store for a cut of the revenue (No author, 2011).

There are a number of threats, however. As with any business, the competition is a threat. One of the tradeoffs you have to accept doing business online is that if you want to sell to the world, you must compete against the world. That brings with it a lot of challenges. The economy is always a challenge, as are consumer tastes. Both are constantly changing and both can have a major impact on your sales. Consumer tastes are especially dangerous in the fashion industry -- if you are selling clothes you must work hard to stay on top of trends. Doing business online also brings with it unique challenges associated with cyber security. This broad issue includes dealing with everything from protecting customer database information to defending against credit card fraud (Slater, 2011).

2. Going international not only means competing against the world but selling to it as well. There are a lot of considerations one must take into account when marketing to people all over the globe. There are different levels of trust with respect to online transactions around the world. The retailer must ensure that it has a reliable means of conveying its trustworthiness to potential buyers, or they will not buy. Culture is an important consideration as well. To some extent, buyers looking for clothes from the U.S. will be interested and probably somewhat knowledge about American culture, but that does not mean that there are not significant cultural differences that could give rise to awkward situations. It is best that if any effort is made to target a specific country or region that the management team becomes at least somewhat familiar with that culture so as to avoid offense. For language, in order to avoid miscommunication through bad translation, the site should just use English. It is the world's second language anyway. When operating internationally, though, it is worth considering that the company may be subject to laws beyond those of the United States. There are international laws that might come into play. The company could face legal troubles in certain countries for marketing any sort of political product, even satire, and the company could also face problems if it starts doing business with customers in Cuba, Iran, Gaza or anywhere else subject to U.S. embargo. Beware that transportation infrastructure in particular is not always reliable. Even when using FedEx or UPS, there maybe problems in remote parts of the world where those companies rely on partners for their coverage.

3. There are a host of legal issues associated with e-commerce. In general, U.S. law is strong enough with respect to e-commerce that any company operating according to U.S. law is unlikely to run into problems doing business with anywhere in the developed world. But there are still some problems that might pop up. A crash course in international business law is recommended so that the owners can understand the basic issues associated with doing business outside of the United States. UNESCAP (2006) publishes a guide to e-commerce legal issues that can be used as a primer to understand the basics.

The increases in speed and efficiency in business communications is beneficial to the company, and should not result in any legal complications. The company just needs to remember to take the same time and due diligence in negotiating with overseas customers online as it would dealing with somebody in person in New Jersey.

4. As noted in response to an earlier question, there are a few different threats that are specific to e-commerce. One of those is fraud, and another is information/identity theft. The former can be difficult to track. It can take days or weeks for an instance of credit card fraud to be revealed. Combine this with the need for rapid shipping and the product will be long gone by the time the fraud becomes apparent. No approach is foolproof but there are ways of minimizing the damage. One is to work with the credit card companies to ensure that you have the latest and most sophisticated techniques and technologies at your disposal to avoid being defrauded. Additionally, it is important that the risk of loss associated with the fraud falls to the credit card company, not the retailer.