Honesty and integrity are not just a moral issue, they are good business. Consider the following situation:

You set up a business. You decide that you can cut some corners where no one will notice. You pay a lot for aggressive marketing, and your first customers come in the door and make a purchase. Weeks later your product fails to perform in one way or another, and the customer is dissatisfied. They not only do not come back, they warn their friends. You spend more money trying to get more customers. Eventually business dwindles and you have spent much of your profit trying to get customers. You are forced to start over and build another business. Where is the logic in that?

One of the really cool things that happens with a reputable business is that over time it gains momentum. This happens because at first, you are educating people about who you are and what you do, and persuading them to give you a try. If your product is sound, and your customers service and return policy is good, people will come back. In fact, some customers will even come back after an error if you are strictly honorable. You don't have to spend nearly as much to keep a customer as you do trying to get one in the first place. That is a statistical fact.

The only way you can start with nothing and build a business, is on a firm foundation of honorable work and reliable customer relations. Momentum won't build if you take liberties with other people's satisfaction. Scammers spend months building up their scam, then they spend money on marketing their scam. It has one wild flare of frenzied success, and then it fizzles, and they are forced to start over. That doesn't happen with a reliable merchant. In fact, they can start with no marketing, and build slowly over months, and their business will grow and grow, and never dwindle and die. It can, in fact, be hard to STOP if you want to close the doors!

Customers expect integrity in all aspects of your business. And integrity filters through all the areas that the customer sees, and the areas that the customer does not see. You need to be honorable in paying taxes that are due, and keeping needed licenses up to speed. Tax penalties and licensing penalties are counterproductive, and will hamper your ability to make a profit.

Integrity has been described as "doing the right thing even when you think nobody is looking". And it makes good business sense. Being honorable in your conduct with your customers is one of those things that you may think no one will ever know about if you fudge on little things. But they do. It is apparent in your attitude about things that you don't realize are connected, and customers who are on the ball will feel uneasy if you are not scrupulously honest.

Sometimes you get into a situation where one customer is dissatisfied through no fault of your own. It is important in those times that you take the responsibility to make it right anyway. One dissatisfied customer may be the means of preventing many more from purchasing, and it just isn't worth it. Some people will never be satisfied, no matter what you do. But if you have tried in every way that is reasonable, then you can at least present your side to anyone who questions, and reasonable people will understand.

Honesty is now considered to be a optional indulgence. It is not. It is an essential element in growing a stable business that will last.