The survey found that only 11 per cent of SMEs maintain a full ecommerce website, although this was almost twice the number reported in recent years.

With online sales totalling £30.2 billion in 2006, and a record £7.7bn in the 10 weeks leading up to Christmas alone, this means that a lot of businesses are missing the boat.

Bruce Townsend, marketing manager for survey author Actinic, says many of the reasons for not adopting ecommerce relate to perception rather than reality, with concerns about the security of purchasing online, the cost of deploying a web site and the time involved. "While there were valid concerns about security and cost in the past, technology has overcome much of this,’" he said

Of those with an e-commerce site, 90% said it was profitable, and 40% said that it cost less to set up than they expected.

Of course, there are costs involved in setting up a shop on the Internet, but these costs are much less than they used to be. The cost of e-commerce software, which handles the shopping cart, payment and billing details etc. has to be added to the basic cost of having a web site built.

In addition, in order to provide the "Golden Padlock" security that people expect, you will need either an SSL secure server certificate (£100-£150pa), or pay for a Payment Service Provider to process your payments (set-up fee plus a percentage of each transaction).

Marketing costs also need to be taken into consideration - its no good just building a site and expecting people to flock to it. Your online shop needs promoting just as much as a physical shop would.

People buy on the Internet because it's convenient - they don't have to worry about the weather, parking spaces, travelling time etc. They can shop when it's convenient for them, late at night, early in the morning, in fact whatever fits in with their lifestyle. If you don't provide online shopping facilities for your customers, you might find that it's your competitors that are earning money while you sleep!

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