|
|
MANATEE — At
Riverside Haircuts & Styles, Angelita Silva still relies
on a simple sandwich board sign that reads “$10 haircuts” to
draw in clients to her Bradenton salon off Manatee Avenue East.
The business owner finds the sign — and the help of repeat
customers — do just fine to market her business. She says
she has no need for a website, status updates or tweets.
"That
works just fine for me,” said Silva of her sidewalk
sign. “That and I have a lot of word of mouth. I don’t
know if I would get a website. Right now I don’t need it.”
In a society that’s become obsessed with Facebook, Twitter
and the web, local businesses that have been forgoing a website
for this long are divided over whether they should take advantage
of the technology.
Some local businesses are in no rush to get one, while other entrepreneurs
realize they’ve resisted long enough.
"You’ve got a balance of those who just don’t get
it, don’t see a need for it, and those who know this is where
they can get more business from,” said David Grace, owner
of the Bradenton-based Abacus Web Services.
A study by Ad-ology, a marketing research firm, found 46 percent
of small businesses surveyed in 2009 did not have a website. A
small business survey conducted by Vista Print reported 32 percent
of small business owners said they would start a website if they
had more time and money.
"The
real bottom end is they’re worried about costs
or they don’t know what to do with it or how it can help,” Grace
said.
Inside Bakery Di Europa, owner Mindy Cress spends her days balancing
the daily operations of her Bradenton bakery and cafe along with
taking and filling orders for wedding cakes with the help of two
employees.
Cress averages about four to five wedding cakes a month; orders
that she says provide “big income” for her business
and mostly come from referrals from popular restaurants such as
the Beach House, The Sandbar and The Sun House.
"Word of mouth is definitely my biggest advertising for wedding
cakes, and it’s the cheapest,” Cress said. “We
consider a website every once in awhile. But I bake, I don’t
do computers.”
Webmasters such as Pedro Perez, owner of Nuevo
Advertising Group in Sarasota, said businesses that are resisting the technology
are missing a chance not only to possibly grow sales but to connect
with consumers.
"When
someone does a search for your business, if you’re not
on there, what comes up is your competitor,” Perez said. “If
you’re not out there representing yourself on the web, someone
else is.”
Bradenton business owner Don Ide went nearly 30 years without having
a website for his company, The Trophy Case.
Ide founded the company in 1986 and for years marketed his products
in person by attending sports functions to show off his inventory
of trophies, awards and plaques with a print catalog.
But with the increase in development in East Manatee County, Ide
is work- ing on his first website to help his Cortez Road lo- cation
better reach consumers in the Lakewood Ranch area.
"When
I started, my business was on the west side,” Ide said. “Now
people from way out east, it’s quite a haul so it’s
more of a convenience to add. I have a couple calls a month asking
for a website. This is just something I know that I need.”
While Ide said he is excited about the potential business a website
can bring, he says the process is a bit overwhelming. He needs
to determine how much of his inventory to list online, which will
require photos of each piece, which will require e-commerce capabilities.
In addition, before Ide commits to starting a website, he has to
think about the design, the content and the cost.
"I'm
trying to educate myself on all the questions,” he
said.
Grace said designing a website can be more affordable than some
think. While he says the hiring of a web developer can start at
$1,000, web hosting services such as godaddy.com or yahoo.com can
start at $3 to $5 a month.
Perez said often it’s the uncertainty about the technology
that keeps small businesses from starting a website.
"It's
not like buying an ad in a magazine or a newspaper where
you’re certain of the ad’s frequency, the size, whether
it will be color or black and white,” Perez said. “The
Internet, it’s a little bit more involved.
"I
would imagine if you are a business and you’ve been running
for 30-plus years and it’s something that’s very, very
local, it has a consumer base that isn’t going to change
much, you could probably get away with not having a website,” Perez
said. “But that’s probably not even 2 percent of businesses
today.”
That’s was Mike Gold’s mindset until recently. With
his business, B’Towne Coffee, based in downtown Bradenton,
he has drawn a good following of customers from the surrounding
government buildings, professional offices and law firms.
But the business owner is starting to think that he could be missing
out on new customers because he doesn’t have a website.
"I've
just been concentrating on the locals in the business
district,” Gold said. “Now it’s time to start
thinking beyond downtown.”
|
