Online identity

A few years ago, I decided to venture into a new venture; as a technology enthusiast, I decided to set up an online electronics store, unlike my father, who had a physical store, with the costs and difficulties of attracting new customers that this implies. This got me thinking, what better way to offer technology than through it?

I propose that you take a quick journey to the past, more precisely to the year 2000, the euphoria for technology was total; everyone wanted to acquire their personal computer, a cell phone or even electronic agendas, and everyone wanted to join this trend. The internet was reaching millions of people around the world, and in case you don’t remember it or don’t know it, “The Million Dollar Homepage” was one of the most famous pages at that time. An idea that was so original and revolutionary that it knew how to express a concept so simple that anyone could understand it, selling pixel by pixel from the website to advertise; whoever had their ad on this page had an “identity” on the internet.

This is why I wanted my store to be online, to allow me to reach new customers, and with the help of social networks, I achieved this in a simpler and more effective way. A few years ago, surfing the net was not an easy task; imagine creating a web page. Today it is something totally normal to open an application on our device and look for our favourite store. Little by little, the internet made its way through us to the present day; basically, everything we do now requires an internet connection, from apps to websites, and they have hundreds of categories, blogs, magazines, chats, online stores, presentation pages, just to name a few.

After 2020, with the unfortunate health event, I came to the conclusion it is indispensable for entrepreneurs or companies to have a website, either to work as a platform or a presentation page. A very accurate phrase is, “if it’s not on the internet, it doesn’t exist” it was Bill Gates who made this pronouncement, and now I understand the vision he had at the time. Is this the online identity? My head kept thinking about how complex it could be to create an online store that works properly, is simple for all users to use and looks professional since my knowledge in this area is not the best. For a moment, I thought about hiring a web developer or just following some YouTube tutorials, but surfing the net a bit, I found Wix.com (NASDAQ: WIX), a company that allows you to design and create websites with a very simple interface so anyone can do it.

Platforms that are intuitive facilitate this task, and Wix.com (NASDAQ: WIX) has developed a system that is “modular,” in which a website is born after dragging and dropping different objects into the template we have created, achieving maximum customization without the need to know HTML5, a code used in web programming. Another great advantage I found developing my store is that everything is in one place; that is, Wix.com (NASDAQ: WIX) provides all the necessary services like hosting, domain, certificates and, of course, user support for those that, like myself need professional assistance from designers to help us with the web design even though we’ll be missing all the fun and the opportunity to be creative with my own ideas.  

Company websites are what social networks are for us individuals: our online identity, our letter of introduction to the world. Nowadays, one of the first questions we ask when we meet a person is, what is their WhatsApp or Instagram, and the same happens with companies when we talk about one of them. Regardless if they are small or big, we ask about their social networks or website; they identify them, project their image and allow them to connect with their clients.

These tools are a great help for those who, like me, still don’t have the necessary knowledge to carry out our own web pages and designs, removing all barriers to entry and opening the doors to a lot of entrepreneurs who want to venture into the digital market and offer their services at a low cost and without borders, something that is very useful in countries like the one I currently live in, Argentina.