Small business,gas prices and the Internet

Luckily for bigger organizations Internet adoption had come before the -$4/gallon gas prices. Since last year I was hearing about major organizations cutting empty office space because most people did knowledge work and preferred to work from home and come in for meetings. Yesterday the small Gloucester Township, New Jersey was reported to be considering closing municipal offices on Fridays to save 35000 $ in heating and cooling costs. I guess Gloucester City can manage most service activities from its website or at least get more applications on-line. Both citizens,employees and the town administrators would be happy so long as the town tax for next year is contained !

Small businesses, like your neighborhood plumber,on the other hand are extremely hard hit.Most rely on traditional advertising including painted vans (that move with gas) to spread their marketing message. A majority do not have websites and those that do -have no real system to keep track of inquires or sales leads and just can't afford fancy customized back-end databases to provide customer service. However, this very large engine of  the American economy is realizing the potential of saving gas and costs  through transferring some of  its business functions on-line. A day may not be far when your plumber gives you a recorded message to fill up a web form with your job details or check progress on-line on an ongoing project!