In the age of internet and social networking, it becomes more and more challenging to create something unique to sell to the market. The effects of internet and social networking to businesses:
1. Since everyone has easy access to information, all kind of overpriced or untrustworthy products can be easily detected, therefore it's not hard to understand why many MLM businesses going to drain in the recent years. Just look at Sony pricing strategy, and it's not hard to understand why they suffer billions of losses in the recent years.
2. With internet, the taste and sense of everyone has been raised without notice. Everyday we're being bombarded with the latest and the most advanced products from internet. So it's almost impossible for us to sell something that looks cheap and substandard without slashing price heavily. Or worst, sometime even giving free people also don't want. When we go shopping, we will unintentionally walk into those franchise restaurants which guarantee quality and standard than walking into some standalone and looks cheap restaurants.
3. Thanks to the of free flow of information, every one can copy and also learn to become our competitors in a short period of time. No longer we can import some china goods and stamp our brand name to sell at extraorbitant price. No longer we can get some night market stocks and sell it at 2-3 times the price at shopping mall. People will know it very fast and find ways to substitute it with a far lower price.
So for any business, the only way to keep afloat is to stay away from the comfort zone, keep moving forward, maintaining a gap with the competitors, and focus on something that requires serialized effort, so that big competitors won't be able to compete purely with numbers.
And for those small businesses without any advantages, it will not be long before they are out of business if they are not able to change and develop their uniqueness that can sell.
