How the Internet has Changed Small Business Forever

The Internet has really changed small business forever. It is easier now to start a business then it ever has been before. You can get your logo created, register your business, order your stationary and invoices (if you even use paper anymore), sign up for phone service, advertise, order your inventory, sell your products, network with your peers and just about anything else that you can think of that your business requires. Has the Internet made running a small business harder? In some ways I think yes. You now have to compete globally and price is a bigger factor then ever for small businesses. You have to be more business savvy in this type of environment because the number of competitors has grown at the same rate, or faster, then the number of customers that you can reach. At the same time the rewards can be much bigger and for this reason I think the Internet has been a great positive for small business. Doug Kersten How the Internet has Changed Small Business Forever by Karen J. Bannan "Ten years ago, the Internet as we know it hit screens. It was 1995 when Explorer and Netscape emerged as the leading browsers for Internet users. Of course, a lot has changed since the days when it took several minutes to load one Web page. Today, URLs are as common as phone numbers for most businesses. During the last decade, we´ve been to the top of the world-during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s-and back down again, when it all fell apart a few years later. But with the bad came the good: The Web forever changed the business world. The following small-business owners are shining examples of how Web-based technologies can be a businessperson´s best friend."