Web guide

ITC has produced its own guide for managers in developing countries: Cybermarketing (132 pages, 1999). This points to a number of misconceptions people often make about the Web:

• 100,000 hits can easily translate into 200 unique visitors because of the way "hits" are counted, and that could mean just 10 orders from 200 visitors. Two would be considered a high ratio of orders per visitor (1%).
• about 100 hours of surfing is required to obtain a good feel of how the Internet does and could function as a commercial tool -- that's about two weeks of ordinary work time.
• The major strengths of the Net lie in reducing interaction costs rather than in generating additional sales
• Setting up a site and maintaining it by changing 10% a month (2.5 pages a week) qould require 220 hours minimum per year, i.e. about a month and a half of one person's average working hours.
• Internet marketing is not cheap.
• Intermediaries will not disappear, because most manufacturers cannot handle direct sales.
• Internet businesses are local rather than global. Small businesses do not compete on an equal footing with large corporations: "Established brand names and financial resources are clear advantages to large MNC [multi-national companies]."
• Finally, purchasing by credit card on the Web is risky for the seller [by fraud] not the buyer.