you won't have to stay open on Thanksgiving or Christmas day. If you live on the East Coast, people from California will still be able to shop in your store after you close. Any time someone wants to know your hours, location, directions, or any other details about your company, they can get it without disturbing you. Because anyone in the world can see your web site, you will gain customers from other states and countries while you are putting in the same amount of effort and money. When you have a web site, you can offer your products and services without hiring any extra employees. You won't have to spend any resources on compensating or insuring your new staff members and still be able to maintain the same level of sales and customer service. If you ever advertised in a local newspaper, you know the costs. You are being charged per line, per inch, and per color. On the Web, there is no limit to how much you can put. You can add pictures, articles, newsletters, rates, product images and so much more! With just one web site, you can have almost unlimited advertisement for the same low monthly cost. Think of how many cards you mail out to let customers know about your sale. All of that can be eliminated by putting the sale information on your web site and inviting your customers to visit it. You can collect your customers' E-Mail addresses and keep in touch with them about special events in your store via E-Mail.
Just adding, not to mention the fact that today we have found many of us to shift from "9 to 5 jobs" to a 24X7 architecture which aligns with the logics put up by the thread author. But to many people like me it has become their online soul. We are more known by our websites rather than our physical store. We do marketing and web promotion more than distributing cards hand in hand. We like to create our online personas while sitting in our home or office rather than decorating more of our physical stores.