Around the world, those that are using the Internet as their main form of advertising, are benefiting greatly. The diagram opposite illustrates the dramatic growth in number of business websites worldwide during last few years.

Up to 86% of 61,000 Australian businesses involved in Internet or web selling, reported a benefit to the business, a survey conducted in 2000-01 describes.

Not only have we witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of Australian businesses using Information technology (ABS, 2002), but the use of the Internet has grown more rapidly, from 29% of employing businesses in 1997-98 to 69% in 2000-01.

Over the same period, the proportion of Australian businesses with websites or homepages has more than tripled, from 6% to 22% of employing businesses (ABS, 2003), and the growth of websites as witnessed since the boom of the Internet era, will continue to grow.

Results found 99% had access to the Internet and 81% owned a website or homepage. About two-thirds (63%) reported that the ability to sell goods or services via the Internet or web had increased trading outside their local area. There was also an increase in trading outside normal business hours (61%), and 57% of business reported an increased efficiency in business procedures (ABS, 2003).

Selling and online presence:

Since the e-commerce community is rapidly growing, where the number of consumers purchasing their products over the Internet is increasing dramatically, it is important you grab this once in a life time opportunity to own a website for your business.

This marketing phenomenon is rapidly changing the Internet retail market into a virtual marketplace, where Australian businesses on its own earned AUS43 billion (USD24 billion) in online revenue from December 2000 to mid 2002 (NUA, 2003), and consumer spending in the United States was up to USD$1.3 billion in 2002 - a 95% increase over the previous year (Habib, 2003).

An exponential growth of total sales made globally (refer to graph above), is seen to increase steadily from the year 1998 to 2003. You too can be found amongst these fortunate businesses earning a great deal. All you have to do is get online!

Australia also provides businesses with one of the most secure Internet infrastructures in the world. Figures released in March 2000 by the OECD ranked Australia third in the world for providing secure servers (ABC, 2000). This indicates Australia can expect a strong growth of secure electronic commerce over the Internet.

Global shift - from shopping malls to Internet virtuality:

In 2002, the total number of people that actually went online in a given month was estimated for every country. The total Internet population (for a given month), can be seen, in the graph opposite for the top 12 countries. The ratio of Australians that went online-vs-Total Population is much bigger then many top Internet countries.

With the greater use of the Internet for B2C (business-to-customer) and B2B (business-to-business) transactions, the National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE), states these transactions will further support a strong and favourable productivity growth for your business.

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