News Article - 24 May 2012
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The number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) with complete ecommerce capabilities has doubled over the past few years, a survey has shown.
Just over a tenth of SMEs now have the full facilities in place, with over 90 per cent of these businesses reporting their ecommerce websites as being profitable, IT Week reports.
The study, conducted by Actinic, also found that 40 per cent of respondents with these amenities thought that the cost of setting up their sites was less than they had anticipated.
Bruce Townsend, the survey's marketing manager, said: "It is surprising that just 10 per cent still have an ecommerce site, but that is up more than 30 per cent on last year."
He added that it was not viable for some businesses to sell their products online while others preferred to sell face-to-face.
Other reasons for businesses not opting to move to ecommerce related to the perception of online transactions as opposed to the actual reality, Mr Townsend suggested, with many citing concerns regarding security, cost and time as reasons for not making the move.
"While there were valid concerns about security and cost in the past, technology has overcome much of this," he concluded.
The company's chief executive officer Chris Barling said that more businesses should grasp the opportunity of branching out into the market and benefit from the sector's growth.
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