Think you can afford to ignore your small business website any longer?

I read an interesting article today from BIZREPORT magazine for online marketers. The article was titled “How Local Websites Are Making Money”. The following are the two quotes that really caught my eye:

“With more consumers logging on to the Internet to research products, buy tickets or get the daily news, marketers feel the Internet is the best place to convert researchers and window shoppers into buyers.”

“Researchers at Borrell Associates expect the local online ad spend to continue growth; they forecast a 50% growth rate for 2008. This is despite an apparent recession in the general US economy and a decline in retail sales over the first quarter.”

What does this mean to small business owners? It means that consumers are out there looking for local websites to shop at while they ignore brick and mortar retail. Online, they can find information and research to help them find the right product at the right price.

The way I see it, you can either have the expert site they find the information on and use that information to help guide them to the “right” (your) product, or you can let your competitor beat you to the sale. It’s entirely up to you.

And don’t think this lets B2B sites off the hook. If consumers find more value in researching and buying online at home, what do you think they do at work when the boss says find us a new phone system or screw gun or dough mixer?

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