Online is key to boosting growth in regional areas

Among all of the feedback on the SBS Insight program’s website, following its “Big Sell” episode was one from Steve who lives and works in Tamworth. He highlighted something that many of us, including John Alexander, our veteran tennis star and new parliamentarian had touched on during a speech at a charity function I attended earlier this year.

Back to Tamworth. In his comments on the SBS Insight page, Steve said: “I am specialist craftsman of model trains, and sell my products online. The internet and my website have given me the ability to tap into a worldwide market and be able to raise my kids in Tamworth, where I grew up. I think that online stores have given people opportunities to stay in ‘remote’ areas and run their online business just as much as it has taken it away.”

In a similar vein, John Alexander, while reminiscing about his tennis days in Atlanta, Georgia in the mid-80s, had talked about the growth of regional America. Specifically the “Sun Belt,” that runs along the bottom of the United States from Georgia to California and all states in between.

He talked about conversations between senior state politicians in Atlanta with senior executives of the Coca-Cola Company. Conversations in which Coke agreed that its huge office structure in New York was very expensive to run because its staff were not paid what the job was worth, but what it cost for its staff to live in a very expensive city.

The state politicians in Atlanta opined that even a receptionist being paid 50% more in New York than if they lived in Atlanta did not equate to being 50% “better”.

Over time the political leaders of each of those states, from Georgia across to Texas and over to California, all met with senior business leaders. They agreed to provide infrastructure and tax breaks that would take pressure off the expensive and over crowded cities of New York, Chicago and Detroit, as long as those companies relocated their administrative and distribution operations to the southern states.

New road ways, airports, business parks, civic areas, ball parks and football stadiums sprung out of the ground, surrounded by new housing developments. And those states boomed, creating “The Sun Belt”.

Well in the year 2011, Tamworth and every other regional town in Australia can grow, by helping micro businesses and small businesses, or networks of businesses, to sell their services and products to six billion people around the globe.

I hope Steve sells many craftsman built trains around the world profitably, so he can spend time with his family as they grow up in Tamworth.

In his role as CEO of CROSSMARK, Kevin Moore looks at the world of retailing from grocery to pharmacy, bottle shops to car dealers, corner store to department stores. In this insightful blog, Kevin covers retail news, ideas, companies and emerging opportunities in Australia, NZ, the US and Europe. His international career in sales and marketing has seen him responsible for business in over 40 countries, which has earned him grey hair and a wealth of expertise in international retailers and brands. CROSSMARK Asia Pacific is Australasia’s largest provider of retail marketing services, consulting to and servicing some of Australasia’s biggest retailers and manufacturers.