The E-commerce / eBay Generation

One Man’s Strength Is Another Man’s Weakness

This is an interesting one…and its something that I take for granted nearly everyday.  This is simply how easy it is for people like me in my demographic to understand how the ever-changing world of e-commerce works and what effect the new eBay updates etc will have or even more importantly where to find them.

This blog is related to the latest pages I have added to the site relating to web design and eBay which can be found HERE.

As I See It

I can only speak from my own experiences in as far as everyone who I have done work for, helped or given advice to have been running small – medium businesses (SME’s) which have largely been run by *Thinks of non offensive way to word this* … slightly more mature people..(I think I got away with that)  To these people I have been working with, the whole idea of websites and e-commerce are new terms, inventions and creations that were not around when they first started out in business, and now feel that they need them out of necessity to keep up with the competition rather than wanting them to benefit the business…almost a ‘keeping up with Joneses’ type phenomenon.

When I look at these types of business, one particularly that springs to mind with whom the owner I was speaking to only last week, is the sheer size and responsibility running a business brings for him.  It is a family business run solely by him and his wife, and occasionally a delivery man.  He is responsible for *takes deep breath* the purchasing, the marketing, the accounting, the manufacture of what his business offers, the delivery, the customer services, the business development and probably a handful of other jobs.  He has been so busy over the years successfully running this company that the era of multiple sales channels has passed him by.

Id quickly like to point out here im sure this isn’t the case for everyone I am purely speaking as I have found in the businesses I have dealt with. 🙂

The Solution

Simply getting someone who knows how to do, what you don’t know how to do.  Speaking from a perspective where I can see what selling online or advertising online can do for a business, when done properly it can be invaluable.

The young professionals of today are the e-commerce/eBay generation, they are the ones who first started properly using computers on a large-scale at school, they saw the rise of the MSN instant messenger, they were there when eBay, MySpace and Facebook all started and as these websites and networks have changed the world it has meant that those using them most have learnt how to use them too.  There are obviously exceptions to this rule, one that spring to mind is Seth Godin, if you havent heard of him, check out his website and this guy thinks in a very different way to most, but he knows his stuff.  What the next big thing will be im not sure and no doubt the next generation will have an even more impressive knowledge of what will seem an impossible and alien technology.  But for help with websites, eBay and e-commerce, your first step should be to ask the e-commerce / eBay generation.

GA, GE and GN

Dave