When setting up a business, aside from a good business plan, it is important to use the right location. As in the maxim for real estate, it is all about location. Without a good site, a business idea may be good but will have less chances of success. On the other hand when a business is located in a strategic place, the outcome can be entirely different.
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Whether one is setting up a business office or shops in retail area or a commercial building, one has to check that the area is in a good location. Getting a prime location can be a wise investment. It has the advantages of enjoying visibility and good traffic. Recognizable location plays an important factor too. People tend to flock to areas that are well known and have good reputations.
Maintaining a business in an out-of-the-way area may hold allure for some people but this would depend on the nature of the business. Unless one's business is about rest and recreation, setting up the business in an out-of-the-way site defeats the purpose of doing business.
It is important likewise for it to be accessible. Ideally, the place must be near or accessible to housing developments so that the staff and personnel would have no problems going to and from work. Studies have shown that less travel time between job site and one's home results to more productive workers and positive attitudes of staffs as well. Commuting can be energy draining especially if travel time is long and involves problems such as traffic jams.
One of the best places to do business in any city would be in the Central Business District or CBD area. Another common name for the area would be downtown. It is here that most financial centres and business activities take place. Big banks and important companies would hold office here. Commercial offices for sale and for rent are likely to be more expensive and may sometimes be hard to come by. However, it is also in these places that business can be done conveniently because of proximity to suppliers and clients alike.
Look for real estate agents or online sites that offer commercial spaces for rent in these prime locations. Most reputable realtors would have a listing of office spaces and shop areas. Some of them may even know of possible locations that may soon be up in the auction market that you can take advantage.
Interactive maps are being used everywhere. One of the major application is to map a location and pinpoint stores, i.e. store locator maps.
What is an interactive locator map? You should have seen on many websites with a map image of an US suburb or a state map. On the map there are set of icons to pinpoint stores, warehouses and sales offices. Move the cursor over an icon and a snippet of descriptive but factual text appears beside the cursor in a speech bubble. This is a store locator map.
In the past, webmasters use HTML and Java Scripts to create a locator maps or store finder map with pinpoints. Which is difficult for most users and the function is limited.
With the increasing popularity of Flash and easy to use map creation software, you can easily create an interactive, clickable locator maps for different purposes, and easily pinpoint locations with clickable points and icons, with interactive features such as mouseover tooltips, hint boxes and many other features.
Here is a scenario example:
We are a video outlet and have 20 shopfronts in a city, the ability to show the shop nearest a potential customer on our website would be a big plus and help our customers to find our shop online easier.
And as few the stores specialize in certain genre of titles, this would be worthwhile showing on our Store locator map using special icons.
There are 2 stores in the CBD. One is for general movies but the other specializes in the old silent movies and has a large list of stock. It is good to make this known to the buying public.
The specialty shops would have a star beside them or be in a different color on the Store locator map. Move the cursor over the icon and a popup text box shows the address of the store and the number of titles in each genre as well as a short description of the shop with parking instructions.
To do this, we simply need a map of the city (either by using a template, or export a static JPG image from Google Map), a database of titles, and then create the interactive flash locator map using an interactive map software. We can add icons to pinpoint our stores with different specialties, with mouseover tooltips to display its full address and cbd france even a storefront image.
When people visit our website online, they can easily use the store locator map to see the distribution of our shops, and then select the nearest shop and see the full contact details with simple mouse rollover. When they click on a shop icon, we will redirect a search query with a set of parameters, and then display the corresponding search results.
This level of visual navigation is comparatively easy for visitors than a traditional search-form based website. And combine the best of online database, interactive flash locator map and the Internet. The trick to getting it right is to determine closely just what your clients want and deliver it in the simplest possible way.