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Big Online Marketing Helps Small Biz

Even without huge ad budgets, small and midsize retailers are learning how to prosper online. Nearly one-third of such companies now sell on the Web, up from 21% in 2005, according to IDC data cited in a New York Times article.

Small-business sites are now more professional-looking than in the past. Yahoo!, Amazon and independent Web developers can build such sites quickly and cheaply.

"[Small businesses] can do some pretty advanced merchandising now, without having to dedicate staff to picking items," said Jimmy Duvall, head of Yahoo! Stores' small-business division, in the Times article.

Amazon regularly features goods on its own site from smaller companies. Nearly one-third of the products sold on Amazon in the third quarter of 2007 were offered by other merchants. Social shopping sites, where browsers exchange tips on popular items or designers, have also boosted business for smaller companies.

Site users compete to be first to post about the latest goods, which often come from lesser-known retailers. When readers click through to small businesses that carry the products, those retailers pay referral fees to the social shopping site. For more on social shopping, click here. [eMarketer]

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