In the modern ages, when people spend a good deal of their time online, either at home on their computers or on the go with their smartphones and tablets, it is no surprise that people make a lot of their buying decisions and their purchases based on what they can find on the internet.

Having your business online is a good step, and for any small business to remain competitive a website is a must, however a real advantage can be gained by having a website that offers your customers more than just some contact details and some text about what you do.

Is your party rental business’s website really working for you?

Many small businesses establish small websites. These websites are based on static pages, which don’t offer much by way of interaction for the customer, and really just serve as the online equivalent of a Yellow Pages listing – giving customers an overview of what the company does and details of how to contact them.

The trouble with these sites is, they are difficult to update and keep fresh. As a result they tend to offer little by way of up to date information, and can look dated and amateurish.

If this describes your website, then what should you be doing to make it have greater impact and win you more business?

E-commerce for small businesses

If you offer a number of party rental packages and services, having an online catalog where your visitors can pick out exactly what they need, find out how much it will cost, and even order it right there on your site would be an obvious benefit. But with your current static site, the overhead of keeping all of those product pages up to date as availability, price and promotions change would be prohibitive, and that’s before you even get into how people would place their orders and pay securely.

Fortunately, it is actually very easy to implement and manage an online catalog and e-commerce facility – you just need to be using the right technology. This means a good content management system (CMS), which allows you to easily add, change and update parts of your website, and an e-commerce system that manages all of the orders and transactions for you.

By bringing this technology into your party rental business, you can offer your visitors an easy way to browse your products and make reservations, which is certain to see you win more clients.