"Location, location, location"?? Can your location double in traffic in 4 years?

by chee Leng (on coffee makers)
(Singapore)

If you are doing F&B retail, the location, location, location would be the evergreen wisdom that veterans have dispense to you.

Well, in fact if you are going into any form of coffee business, traffic is key and thus, location has to be good.

But, here is a thought which I want to offer to all that are reading this article. Can your location double the traffic in 4 years? Can it offers 24 hours access to your customers with minimum increase in cost?

Unlikely right?

According to a study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) supported by Google, the web economy would double in 2016, less than 4 years time.

The spend is expected to grow from the current $2.3 trillion to $4.2 trillion and by then, nearly 50% of the world's population would be online.

So, if you are operating in a developed country, there would be more people going online and if you are in a developing country, the pace of people going online would be hasten.

This is due to the emergence of a "new internet", a term coined by the BCG researchers. This is where:

-Internet access is not a luxury -the cost of using it would be very low

-Majority of internet users would be from developing countries such as China

-80% or more of users would access the internet via mobile devices.

-Social media would be huge, customers would want to interact with companies.

My $0.02

Regardless of the location that you are based, internet growth would have an impact on your business. If you are happy just serving the local community, then the social aspect would impact your business.

The lowering cost and the growth of web access via mobile devices meant that more and more of your targeted audiences would be online using mobile devices.

The question is: Do you have a platform to engage them?

Do you have a mobile site that can showcase your food and beverages to them or even allow them to order online?

A even better alternative would be to have your own social media platform such as Facebook where you get to interact with your customers 24-7.

If you have a relationship with them, they would never really leave your shop.

And that is for folks that just want to operate F&B catering to the local community. With the rise of the internet in developing country, the demand and search for products online would rise.

Imagine if just 1% of Chinese would to look for certain single origin coffee beans, that demand would possibly be bigger than your domestic market.

So, why not start building the platforms to get some of these online folks that might require your product and services?

The web based economy is definitely growing, and personally I feel the thing to do is to build the platform to reap the harvest.

Even, if you intend to start small and do it slowly, in 3-4 years time, your site or social media platform would be substantial enough to reap you some business.

The big boys are already doing it and there is no reason why you should not:

See how Starbucks does it with mobile

See how Nestle does it