by: Niel Roy

A few days back, on a weekday afternoon, I was chatting with Peter. He is an old time friend of mine. Peter was always passionate about cars and finally he left his mundane insurance company job and started his own Auto accessories shop in North Clark St., Chicago. He is happy with kind of business he is getting since the past two years, but it seems to get stagnant at a point. "Yeah I'm doing well. But Selling to the same customers, same kind of goods… its not much better than those nine-to-five job days of mine", said Peter.

Finding an opportunity for him, I suggested him to go online with a website. "It will give you new customers, new ways to sell your products online, open more channels of income for you. And you can also profit from your knowledge and passion for cars." Peter did not take much long to decide. He started off with a website for his store within the next 30 days.

Its over an year now. The last time I had a word with Peter over the phone, he proudly said "guess hows my website doing? Its generating over 50% of my monthly business. And everyday I am getting n' number of enquiries from customers and other merchants." Wow! A real nitro-boost for Peter's auto store.

Yes I feel not only Peter, today every business whether it's the local owner-operated business, retail store, restaurant, dry cleaner, night club or the dentist – they all need a website. They may not be selling online, but should have an internet presence. In fact all business who have felt the need to get listed in the Yellow Pages sometime or the other, should be present in the internet today. It is the place where there customers are looking for them Today!

I was reading a fantastic report on how useful a website can be for any small, self-owned business. The report also shows you various ways and methods to go about your online business. I would surely like to share it with you some other time.

Today, you can put up a modest website at something around Two-Three Thousand dollars, for a genuine internet business. Not a big deal if you consider the kind of reach and mileage you can get out of it. It will help your prospects gather information from the comfort and privacy of their room. Your site will answer the queries of your prospects, as your most dependable salesperson does on his best day, and that too 24x7.

If you are not that confident in spending a few thousand bucks on a new way of doing business, you can surely try a much easier and affordable way of making your online presence.