By Ben Moore

Online sales are everywhere now. The online bank PayPal, has over 232 million accounts worldwide. The majority of people have engaged in at least one online transaction; flights, the cinema, music gigs, sports events, weekly shops in the larger chains, even children use their parents credit cards to unlock member areas of games sites. There is no escaping the fact that e-commerce is rising every year.

A recent survey by ISME  reveals that only 33% of over a thousand companies surveyed are selling online?

“The reasons for this are the availability, cost and most importantly quality of broadband, with the main fear being the loss of customer trust due to poor on-line user experience for 47% of respondents”.
Mark Fielding, Chief Executive, ISME

The National Broadband Scheme in October 2010 finished rolling out internet connections to their primary designated areas. Now the Rural Broadband Scheme is in operation, obviously trying to mop up the rest of the disconnected in the country but even they state,
“…the Department will check with existing internet service providers to see if they are willing to provide a service to the premises concerned.”

The next ISME article discusses the hammering that retail sales businesses have taken over the last few years. This is of no surprise to anyone. But couple this with the above lack of trust in the broadband for e-commerce.

Is it not surprising that many businesses have closed their doors while others struggle to survive?

Would you trust your broadband to run an online business?

We would like to hear your opinions.