Renting the Online Website Platforms to Small and Medium Business Enterprises

Online Website Platforms: Renting the Platforms to Small and Medium Business Enterprises
Student’s Name
Institution

Online Website Platforms: Renting the Platforms to Small and Medium Business Enterprises
The current pandemic has taught the world about the value of working remotely and engaging in online market platforms. Online platforms can offer versatility to a business because they offer presentable marketing opportunities for consumers that are far from the physical location of a business. This is one of the changes that online platforms offer business entities. However, being online is not enough because many entities have developed their online portfolios. Small entities have to use simple, presentable, and easy-to-use platforms that are easily accessible to the consumers. The online platforms will act as the new shelves where merchandise sold in the physical location can be checked.
The online platforms will offer demonstrations for the service business, and further information about the service is detailed. Despite the immense and impressive manner in which online platforms can change how business entities operate, numerous limitations inhibit the exploitation of the opportunity by small and medium scale business entities. My organization addresses these inhabitants and facilitates the development of online platforms for many of the small and medium business entities.
One of the trends that have taken place is the use of mobile phones. In 2019, the number of mobile phone users was expected to be 4.68 billion. Smartphones are among the common mobile phone models, and they have taken up the mobile phone market share. As such, they offer a convenient method of accessing the internet and conducting online purchases. Projections deducted that more than one billion more users will have joined internet connectivity using smartphones within the next five years. Therefore, this is an indicator of mobile phone users’ rising market.
Investment Philosophy
The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic saw many people forced to remain indoors and work from home. These changes had an overarching impact on small and medium entities that usually rely on having their consumers visit their stores to make their purchases. According to UNCTAD (2020), online purchasing is here to stay and will continue to influence the way people buy products.


Figure  SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 1: the trends in online purchases in various consumer products and services after the outbreak of Covid-19.
While small and medium business entities languished in the wake of the pandemic, well-to-do entities such as Amazon have made massive profits. They capitalized on the situation to allow people to make their purchases online and stay at home. Therefore, the new concept of online purchasing has allowed many businesses to grow in the wake of the current pandemic (Zhongming et al., 2021). However, entities that had the muscles to invest in a simple responsive, reliable online platform have only realized real success.
Even though the sharp effects of the pandemic are gradually fading, the new consumerism idea of shopping online has stuck. Many people still prefer to make online purchases even though they can visit the actual store and come back with the goods. Therefore, online purchases have the potential to revolutionize how commercial activities are conducted around the world (Zhongming et al., 2021). However, this new gap demands the right resources to develop a robust and simple-to-use online platform.
One of the platforms that people have opted for is social media marketing platforms. However, social media has the weakness of now allowing users who are business owners to fully customize their pages to meet their personal preferences. As a result, despite promising performance when it comes to online sales, social media does not offer the desired robust marketing platform that entities can fully rely on. Getting these services for each retailer can be a hustle that not many will feel ready to indulge. Therefore, bundling the whole package as one makes it appealing to many of the small and medium scale retailers.
When it comes to developing websites, many small entities do not have websites. Those that have websites only do so as a way of imitating others. As Sun et al. (2012) explained, many small entities have websites that are not effective and do not match their business outlook. Many of the small business entities do not reap the full benefit of having a website.
It is expensive to hire programming experts and website developers. As such, many small entities do not have the needed resources to develop high-end platforms that will sell (Auger, 2005). Therefore, for the few small and medium entities with websites, it is difficult to capitalize on websites because most of them do not stand out and appeal to the targeted consumers. Moreover, most of the developed websites do not have customizable platforms, so they offer a poor customer experience.
The gaps noted in the desire to have high-end, customizable, and highly attractive platforms create an opportunity to offer the retailers the template of online platforms that they want. Moreover, the proposed business model focuses on not only offering the platform but also packaging the website hosting, data storage, regular management of the websites, and even updating the website systems to ensure the highest quality of online interaction for the consumers.
Many of the small and medium entities are looking up to the trends in commerce that the industry giants are setting. Large-scale retailers and even global entities have focused on developing online platforms as a way of doing business. Small businesses have to find a way to capture the same advantages, as recommended by Fisher et al. (2007). To realize all the features of a high-end website for any business, small entities do not have to incur the exorbitant costs of developing such a website. Instead, the small entities get to enjoy the premium features of a website through rending a template and customizing it to meet their preferences. Once everything is ready, the website is launched for only a few bucks a month.
Figure  SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 2: The Business Model Approach
General Market Outlook
The main challenge with many organizations is finding ways to take advantage of the burst in the use of the internet for business. This entails transferring a business from a physical setup to an online store. Many entities have resorted to hiring experts who will build their websites and bring them to full operation. However, this is an expensive venture that many small entities around the world might not capitalize on (Auger, 2005). As a result, despite the burst of the internet and online platforms, many entities have only capitalized on social media for marketing their products. Social media does not offer effective channels for setting up online stores, and the platforms are hardly customizable to meet the interests of every small business. This gap is huge, especially among the small and medium enterprises that dominate most global commerce.
The internet has favored online business because it is now readily available among many people and offers a cheap way of sharing information with potential consumers. The development of fiber networks across the world makes it easy for billions of people to connect and engage each other, and small entities can operate globally (Diamond, 2008). The internet also closes the gap with challenges such as distance being resolved. Consumers do not have to travel abroad to check out a product or even to buy it.
The use of robots in online platforms is now getting common, and even small and medium entities can make use of robots in their operations. Robots have the benefit of making work easier. Also, automation minimizes the amount of work employed people have to do. Robots can be incorporated into the websites to answer some of the common questions posed by the consumers about certain products and can even guide consumers when it comes to making choices about the products they love.


Figure  SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 3: retail e-commerce sales worldwide from 2014-2024 (in billion US dollars).
As a marketing platform, social media will only be used as an outlet for the online websites made for small businesses. Social media platforms’ clustered and disorganized mode will make it hard for business entities to make immense profits when they rely solely on the platforms for marketing. However, social medi...