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As with all things new, it is very easy for us to become wrapped up in the innovation, the
convenience, and the excitement we experience with something never available to us before. Internet
marketing is no exception. Despite the obvious advantages offered by this new medium for commerce
and business in general, internet marketing does have its limitations. It is also easy for us to
assume that a new product or technology can do more than it really can. Following are some factors
in considering what internet marketing is not.
First to consider is that internet
marketing is not a replacement for the traditional means of shopping and/or selling. Assume for a
moment that you are looking to buy a diamond ring for someone special. You go online, browse through
picture after picture, find some really beautiful and eligible pieces, and that's where you stop.
You can't feel that ring, nor can you take a close look at the diamond. You have only a limited
scope of what the merchandise will be like when you physically possess it. Are you going to pay
potentially thousands of dollars for that ring, or will you go to a local jeweler instead, where you
can get a much better idea of what you're buying? This is a key limitation to internet
marketing for many products.
Internet marketing is also not a
fail-proof system. Nearly everyone who conducts any form of business or shopping online has
experienced the temporary unavailability of a website. The site goes down, and you can't get your
business done when you had planned. Furthermore, you may not even get an indication as to when the
site will be operational again. It can be a frustrating fact of
e-commerce.
Another fact of internet marketing that many fail to
consider is that it is not a "get rich quick" scheme. True, many entrepreneurs have
entered this lucrative market and become millionaires. However, when you compare the number who has
had such wild success, with all the businesses who have failed or never really taken off online, you
will find that the “overnight” millionaires are not the standard of what internet
marketing is. Most of the business realities of the brick and mortar world still apply to the
virtual world. Success in internet marketing requires a lot of hard work, just as any other
type of business venture requires.
Internet marketing, finally,
is not today what it will be tomorrow. As fast as one model of computer replaces another, so do the
options provided in the world of internet marketing. Just fifteen years ago you could go online and
find little more than text-based product descriptions. Now look at what you can find on the
internet. Entire stores exist online, and their number is growing. Furthermore, laws on everything
from personal security to taxation are changing and promise to make a different landscape of
internet marketing than the one we see
today.
www.IzzySoftware.com
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What Internet Marketing is Not
