Making The Case For Your Green Site

Making The Case For Your Green Site

eSources is the Internet’s largest wholesale directory of verified wholesalers, dropshippers, manufacturers, importers and trade distributors. Start your online retail business today at http://www.esources.co.uk

We are all breathing a sigh of relief that countries around the world have begun to take the need to Go Green seriously. The impacts of global warming and the unpredictability of fuel prices are pushing people and organizations to rethink the way we are treating the earth. New research suggests that customers are also expecting their online vendors to be working just as hard as their bricks and mortar counterparts to transform their business practices to more earth friendly approaches as well.

In the March 31, 2009 edition of PC World, the Web hosting company 1&1 reported that almost 80% of online shoppers would use environmentally friendly Web sites and companies over their less green rivals. Committing to minimizing their impact on the environment has a clear commercial advantage for all types of retailers, 1&1 CEO Oliver Mauss said. They further reported that 60 percent of online buyers said they would purchase from an online retailer if they were powered by green energy in some way, such as powering their websites from a green data centre or servers using renewable energy.

The Internet Media in Retail Group (IMRG) has picked up on this theme and in the summer of 2009 launched a Go Green, Go Online campaign to support online retailers as part of the sustainability solution.

The data suggests that you should be sure that you are devoting some part of your retail site to explaining how you and your company are part of that sustainability solution. You will not only help the earth but your commitment will resonate with potential consumers of your products; it is a win win situation.

The IMRG has published data that might be helpful to you in your efforts. For example:

- Online shopping saves travel by car. Shopping is cited as the most frequent reason for car travel in Great Britain, accounting for 20% of all trips and for 12% of mileage. Studies suggest that each time a customer decides to buy online rather than go shopping by car, 3.5kg of CO2 emissions are saved. You might add this information as a note during the transaction process.

- Online e newsletters and brochures replace their physical equivalent so saving paper and distribution costs. Marketing E-mail, which number in the billions in the UK alone, probably account for the two year drop in direct mail volume (after ten years of increases). Add a line to your email newsletter mentioning the reduction in paper waste.

- Less packaging and waste. Although this theory is not always true as items need to be more thoroughly packaged to survive the shipping, many digital products can be downloaded without ever appearing anywhere except in the virtual world. How can you use this argument in your business? Do you use recycled materials for packing? Do you encourage your materials to be recycled or make them easier to recycle?

Operating as a green company is good for the environment and good for business. If you can make the claim, do so proudly.

You may also like to see the following articles:

• How To Exploit The Power Of Social Media Sites
• Communicating With Chinese Suppliers – It Is Not Just A Language Barrier
• How To Be Effective In Your Persuasive Writing – What Is In It For Me?
• How To Find And Contact Your Market On Social Networking Sites
• SEO: How To Optimize Your Website For Bing