subject: Web Design Boom in the Toronto, Mississauga, Oakville Corridor [print this page] Web Design Boom in the Toronto, Mississauga, Oakville Corridor
When doing business in Toronto it becomes clear that expansion of profitable companies has gone to the southwest to take advantage of the available office buildings, manufacturing real estate, and access to the major highways - the Queen Elizabeth, Highway 401 and Highway 427. Having many thriving businesses nearby means that companies who do web design from Toronto to Oakville will have a healthy roster of potential clients. Visits by the sales people can be time-effective and profitable.
Mississauga is on Toronto's western border and has a population of 668,549 and as the curve of Lake Erie goes southward you will next arrive at the town of Oakville, with more than 166,000 souls. Most adults are in the workforce with above average incomes and many are business owners who require web services. With the QEW connecting the three locations, you can visit offices to discuss web design in Toronto, Oakville, Aurora, and Mississauga all in one morning.
The area south and west has become more affluent than east of Yonge Street (Hwy 11) where the older and more residential Scarborough, Pickering, and Oshawa exist. One exception is a town to the northeast called Markham which consists of a concentrated business area of glassy skyscrapers standing alone in the distance. The population in the area around Markham is 261, 573. The businesses there are mainly financial and corporate in nature - not a good market for medium-size web designers to penetrate with cold-calling.
There are about two dozen Toronto, Mississauga, and Oakville web design companies servicing this area of about 2 million people. The residents of Halton and Peel region and their children will be possible business owners at some point, using the law of averages. Local computer employees are easy to find, some educated at Hamilton's McMaster University. A company with 10 - 30 employees would do well to set up in affordable office space in a place like Oakville or Mississauga to keep overhead under control and still be close to the companies who will yield web site design contracts. Some companies wish to set up more than one site so there is ongoing potential for expansion. Letting the customer know that competitors use multiple sites may elicit a response that results in more projects.
Like all business sectors that have little or no profitable aftermarket sales, web design companies can't just site and wait until the site goes obsolete to get another order, so suggesting more sites and more optimization and marketing (if it's offered) may result in bigger up-front contracts which are needed to keep many heads above water.
The independent web designers are impossible to count but the complexity of the sites that would be commonly used in a modern manufacturing and business area like the QEW corridor would severely limit their ability to compete on time-sensitive projects with extensive programming and graphic design work. There is difficulty in advertising web design; a face-to-face sale is the only method of getting client's full attention. It is also a sector where extensive communication is needed for the frequent complaints so the sales person also has to serve as customer service to maintain good relations with the client.
