Is E-Commerce Truly Recession Proof?

The current economic climate is very troubling for almost everyone. If you are working for someone else you will be concerned about your job security and about the likelihood of having no wage rises for the foreseeable future. And if you are working for yourself you will no doubt be spending more time than ever trying to figure out how to cut costs wherever you can and attract more customers to keep your business healthy – even if that means reducing prices to a certain degree.We’ve often been told that internet marketing businesses are safer from such economic woes than standard brick-and-mortar ones. And there are certainly more and more cases of local businesses – and even well known names – shutting down because they are no longer able to trade profitably.But during all this upheaval are internet based businesses really untouchable? Can they really ride out any kind of recession with no issues or problems at all? After all it seems hard to believe that when other businesses are falling left, right and centre, e-commerce companies are staying exactly as they were before.In truth there will be e-commerce businesses that fall by the wayside during this time, but they tend not to be noticed quite as much as more traditional businesses are. You would certainly spot the difference if a shop you walked past every day suddenly closed down, and yet unless you bought stock from a website continually you probably wouldn’t notice if it went the same way.And of course websites have lower overheads. Apart from hosting costs and the yearly or twice yearly nominal payment for the domain name, there is really very little else you need to think about to keep a website up and running twenty four hours a day.It is also true to say that there are plenty of activities you can get involved in online to promote your business without having to spend any money in the process. Search engine optimization is just one example, and it can help get a website ranked higher and seen by more people.So it is probably fair to say that while e-commerce businesses are still at risk of going under during a recession, they are less likely to than their high street counterparts. So long as the person in charge of the business keeps their head on their shoulders and concentrates on balancing the books and making sure the business isn’t investing too much money when it can ill afford to, an internet venture stands a far better chance of making it for the long term than any other business does.But if you have an e-commerce business of your own, don’t take this as a sign to sit back and relax and think that you can do no wrong. Now is a more important time than ever to concentrate on attracting customers and keeping your business afloat, so that when any recession passes you will still be there to make more sales in the future.