Sitemakers specialise in ecommerce solutions for retailers selling on the Internet

On Saturday of the August Bank holiday I had the misfortune of being taken critically ill with internal bleeding, nothing particularly unusual for those who know me but none-the-less an experience I'd rather have missed given the opportunity. I subsequently spent the month in hospital beds in both Dorchester County Hospital and later Kings College Hospital in London.

As well as plenty of other thought provoking issues this experience brought upon me it did highlight to me how I had unintentionally become dependant on the internet. What I found between being prodded, poked and injected was how much the lack of access to the internet effected my everyday life, albeit an everyday life in a hospital bed. Indeed one might say there's little difference between a hospital bed and an office chair!

Having been used to nine to five internet access on the outside I now found myself buying newspapers and magazines in some quantity to satisfy my appetite for current affairs and various hobbies and interests including photography, sport and the natural world. All of this came at some cost I hasten to add. I had become accustomed to the convenience of simply clicking onto News 24 from the BBC or searching for the latest digital cameras on Google.

One of the biggest headaches I found was having to deal with 'telephone banking' whilst I was away from a computer screen. Like so many of us I had been weaned onto online banking and, despite feeling somewhat bullied into it by the declining level of service from my high street branch, I have come to appreciate the convenience and speed of it.

I pined for my Facebook and iTunes accounts, missed reading the latest entries on my favourite blogs and forums and temporarily lost touch with the latest industry news. I began bleeping with anguish and required physio on my index finger as it began to sieze-up.

Looking back at this experience it demonstrates our growing dependency on the internet. National Statistics figures back this up, the most recent showing that 61% of UK homes, some 15.2 million households are now connected to the internet, up from 54% from 2006. A recent study by the OFT predicts that online retail spending in the UK is set to double in the next 5 years to over £29 billion.

What the experience and the figures above also illustrate for myself, working directly in the industry, is the absolute necessity for businesses to embrace the net. No longer should the question be, should we have a website, rather when will we have one? Achieving that all important foothold on the web sooner rather than later should be an absolute priority for those with little or no internet presence, particularly for those within the retail sector.

As a society our dependence on the internet can only increase, with an ever increasing selection of internet aware gadgets and the development of broadband and Wi-Fi connection the opportunities for those in business to reach their customers are clear to see.

For more information on taking full advantage of the internet for your business contact us today.