(Written by Sam Lim - EduX Services)

Creating corporate websites for organizations and businesses have been gaining its popularity in the recent years. Business, be it small and medium enterprises or large multi-national companies, are engaging web professionals to create, revamp and maintain their websites.

There may be a group of businessmen, who are sticking to the conventional way of doing business, may question the liability and necessity of having a website for their business operations.

In a journal article by the American City Business Journals Inc., it was mentioned that when it comes to e-commerce, consumers are mostly browsing. 8 percent of Internet users cite buying as a reason for using the Internet according to a recent Roper Starch Worldwide poll, but 25 percent use it to look for company information, another 25 percent look up product information and 18 percent plan trips online. With this statistic, we can see that a small number of present-day consumers no longer need to make trips to their preferred retail shops to buy what they want, find out more information or detail or to plan for a trip abroad. All these will be brought to them with just a click of button.

However, for business-to-business e-commerce it is another story. This type of e-commerce is expected to grow at annual rate of 41 percent a year over the next five years, according to The Yankee Group. Business-to-business transaction volume is expected to increase from $138 billion this year to $541 billion in 2003, and along the way change how companies search for and procure goods and services.

Wealthy households continue to have the highest proportion of Internet users, but that's gradually changing. More than half of those planning to go online in 1999 come from middle and lower-middle class homes according to Inteco. and Pew Research. A quarter of those who've gone online in the past year make less than $30,000.

Senior executives are becoming more comfortable with the Internet. More than 90 percent had web access in 1998 and half say they feel comfortable using the Internet up from 36 percent in 1997. And they like to shop while they're surfing; two-thirds say they make personal purchases online regularly, according to an Andersen Consulting survey.

Hence, as can be seen from here, internet has been gaining its importance as a source of information for consumers. The number of consumers logging onto their internet to surf websites for information and to carry out e-transactions has been increasing over the years.

So, is it really a necessity to have a business website? Why do we really need to have a website?

Let me just point out a few uses and benefits of having a business website.