At 11 pm GMT on 31st January 2020, the UK left the EU Single Market and Customs Union, a move that affects citizens and businesses alike.
Currently, in a transition period or implementation period that ends on 31st December 2020, businesses have been given time to adjust. Very little has changed in 2020; in 2021 entrepreneurs will need to have implemented post-Brexit legislation and be prepared for future governmental influences on how their businesses operate.
Whether you are pro- or contra-Brexit, these widespread effects do and will affect all B2B and B2C enterprises. Before Brexit, the UK dealt nearly 50% of its trade in Europe and an additional 10% in countries with EU trade agreements. From the control of fishing waters and overseas utilities to data security and worker’s rights, every sector must adapt to survive.
B2B and B2C: Local Clients
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many small businesses to expand their services. Local restaurants are focusing on delivery services, domestic enterprises are entering into foreign sales and data-based services have to contemplate the future of data security and GDPR.
In terms of no deal or deal, changes to domestic sales are easiest to predict. Even so, many businesses rely on overseas suppliers or warehouses; increased vigilance at UK borders will cause delays in land transport coming into the UK. UK-based suppliers dealing locally and overseas may move to other countries.
“What Brexit Britain needs is people who remain willing and able to re-imagine the economy and society to be able to cope with all the known and unknown fallout.”
John Pearce, CEO of Made in Britain
Elon Musk’s new battery plant in Germany is partially the result of Brexit-fuelled fears. Yet Britishvolt is planning a similar lithium-ion gigafactory in Wales, together with a 200-megawatt solar power plant. In the end, it seems that the future of Great Britain post-Brexit relies on business-based optimism. It is time for your company to engage in positive thinking.
For local businesses that do not change tactics, competition is guaranteed to exceed demand to a level far beyond that of Great Britain as part of the EU. Marketing investments will need to be measured against realistic gains to avoid making costly mistakes. Yet even in light of an uncertain future, hope remains strong.
Local businesses should be asking themselves:
- Can I source more parts or products from local suppliers?
- Is it worth ordering extra overseas stock in 2020 to bridge post-Brexit import legislation and border delays?
- Local suppliers to UK customers could experience a sales surge – can your business keep up with demand?
- Where should I expand physical premises?
- How do I attract targeted UK customers to my website?
- Can your marketing efforts increase local sales to a sufficient degree?
Preparatory Steps for Local Businesses
It is time to look for alternative suppliers where rapid delivery is guaranteed. UK-licensed airlines will no longer be able to operate as community air carriers and are now depending on the success of the UK cherry-picking to hold their right to fly to and from the EU.
The UK rail service is unlikely to be as strongly affected, but border controls and customs will extend delivery times, at least until Brexit legislation has settled. This could take months or years. The shipping trade, functioning as normal as of 2021, will likely have to pay higher taxes and duties between the UK and EU. The same applies to road transport, in addition to long HGV queues in Kent.
For local businesses using local materials, the post-Brexit future may seem bright. Even so, new immigration and work laws may affect your employees. There is sufficient time to assist your workers, not replace them and have to deal with negative public opinion. You will need to research the most profitable internal transport links and certainly expand your market to every corner of the country.
Marketing efforts will need more than a CTA to ‘Buy British’. Domestic sales should measure transitional and post-Brexit period manoeuvres in the same way as they have measured and morphed to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even highly-localized businesses – hair and beauty salons, pet grooming, taxi companies, home-based tutors and freelance carers, for example – should be looking at how their business can grow. The increased local competition will mean maximising trading and service borders.
A second branch in another county not only increases brand recognition but gives you the opportunity to measure ROI in another location. The types of services offered should also be expanded. The majority of taxi companies now offer airport shuttles and minibuses for larger groups. Smartphone and computer repair services give customers from all over the country the opportunity to send a faulty item at low-to-no cost to your repair department.
Ultimatewebtraffic and Elitewebsitetraffic
One business type that is taking off during these difficult times is the web traffic for the sale industry. Often pictured as a get-rich-quick promise that does not deliver, many entrepreneurs are starting to see the true advantage of bought web traffic with more realistic expectations.
Purchasing web traffic from a reputable company is a simple, cost-effective way of ensuring potential customers know about your company and its services. By directing thousands to hundreds of thousands of daily to monthly human visitors to your website, services like Ultimatewebtraffic and Elitewebsitetraffic can make a significant difference in terms of brand recognition and sales. Neither service promises nor guarantees conversion rate explosions; such an event is purely the result of your product, service, prices, and website.
What Does a Good Website Traffic Provider Provide?
When you have made your decision to buy web traffic for your B2C website, you first need to do your research. Concentrating on the British public means you must limit visitor location to the UK – a feature known as GEO-targeted traffic or geotargeting. Both of the abovementioned sites allow you to select up to three countries. Visitors that use a VPN to hide their location only make up a small percentage of these visitors. All traffic is collected by vast, huge, and attractive websites managed by the traffic providers. Visitors to these megacities are required to surrender minimal personal data for target group purposes. Setting up such sites takes time, investment, and effort.
A good website traffic provider will also allow you to select a number of niches into which your redirected visitors are grouped. These vary in range but help you to receive visitors with a slightly higher chance of a conversion. At prices of between £0.0023 and £0.006 per visitor, one web traffic sale via the provider will at minimum partially or fully cover your investment. Furthermore, you will have introduced your service to between 5,000 to 250,000 UK residents and this increase in visitors will boost your URL on search engine results.
How to Use Website Traffic
The reason why web traffic providers are not always taken seriously is due to lower-quality services that redirect bots to client websites. As a bot cannot buy your product, this is a lost investment. Similarly, disreputable providers will not have made their traffic AdSense safe. For websites and businesses that rely on AdSense income, detection of huge numbers of visitors – especially when these are bots – can lead to your website being banned.
A reliable website traffic provider should guarantee human visitors and almost completely guarantee AdSense-safe traffic. As AdSense is known to ban sites that rely on purely organic traffic, this can be as much the fault of AdSense algorithms as a lack of source regulation by the website traffic supplier.
Another reason why AdSense blocks websites using bought website traffic is that this paid source of visitors is used as a marketing backbone, with continuously-running subscriptions. Very little or no other investment is made in product or service marketing. Website traffic should be bought intelligently; with occasionally purchased boosts to clever campaigns, your conversions will increase. How much your conversions increase depends on the quality of your product and how it fits into the needs of your targeted UK customer base.
As we have already seen, the UK market is becoming saturated with ‘Buy British’ businesses. This is encouraging – increased internal expenditure is exactly what Brexit needs to succeed. At the same time, learning more about your transitional period and post-Brexit consumers and inviting as many of them as possible to look at your product is a clever step for local B2C businesses.
How Brexit Affects UK Customers
Much has been written about the fall of the British economy from 2021; customer-based research is giving B2C businesses an indication of life after Brexit. While early uncertainty caused high levels of consumer anxiety, this initial reaction seems to have settled into a more cautious but optimistic state of mind.
Up to 25% of UK consumers find that British-made is an attractive influencing factor when making a purchase; however, other factors make a much greater impact on the final decision. The most influential factors – not in any particular order – are:
· Brand loyalty
· Transparency in unknown brand websites
· Rapid, low-cost delivery
· Environmentally friendly and sustainable products
· Good price/quality ratio
· Discounted prices and special offers
· Excellent customer service
· High nutrient levels in foods and toiletries
· Minimal packaging
· Natural ingredients
Financial worries predicted as a result of the UK leaving the EU seem not to have made as great an impact as expected. While many UK citizens are placing more funds in their savings accounts, both their personal and general economic situations have improved since January 2020. Only major purchases seem to have experienced a slump.
Brexit Slump or Corona Slump?
Major purchases have undergone a slump in 2020 but this is not solely the fault of Brexit talks. Items considered major purchases include cars, large renovations, homes, and expensive luxury items. Whether this slump is the result of Brexit fears or other influences is not always so clear-cut. This year is not only the transition year but also the year of the coronavirus pandemic.
Certainly, the 2020 pandemic is a huge influencer, overshadowing the UK’s exit from the EU. Forced furloughs, bankruptcies and unemployment are at the back of consumer minds all over the world. Perhaps the most obvious COVID-related business crisis is found in the airline industry. Similarly, the entertainments and hospitality industries at least those that rely on social interaction – as well as car sales, car parts, and oil and gas drilling companies are suffering huge losses.
Even so, many businesses are flourishing. They include the insurance sector, online escapism such as iGaming websites, PPE manufacturers, bicycle and home gym equipment suppliers, local grocers, DIY physical stores and e-commerce. It is obvious that many of these are the result of enforced and voluntary self-isolation measures; however, local businesses in the UK should also be preparing for the effects of a no-deal Brexit both during and after the pandemic.
Future local successes are those that are currently aware of the competition, expanding into other British counties, increasing UK awareness of their services and/or products, showing corporate responsibility to local charities as well as looking after their own non-national employees, and implementing marketing campaigns that bring British customers right to their (online) door.