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Leverage, Expand, and Grow Your Business Online

2004-08-27by Tina Stillions

Simple Solutions to Online Challenges for SMBs

According to the US Census Bureau and IDC, small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) generate significantly higher revenue, have a longer life expectancy and a greater rate of success when they are online.  Unfortunately, many business owners view the Internet as a secondary channel for sales.  Currently e-commerce accounts for 5.4% of all retail sales and is expected to boom to an amazing 12% or $316 billion by the year 2010 - less than six years away.  Both statistics support the claim that e-commerce is here to stay and will play a significantly greater role in overall business development for SMBs in the future.  

The reality, however, is that many small businesses find it harder to compete in the marketplace and though the internet is supposed to level the playing field, many who have invested money into the development of e-commerce sites oftentimes don't know where or how to begin to market them.  Aplus.Net (www.aplus.net) has facilitated this process by creating a suite of tools designed to help online storefronts drive business to their "virtual" doorsteps.  These new "Connectors" (http://hosting.aplus.net/ecommercehosting.html) enable business owners to easily list products with four powerful online merchants and directories -- Amazon, eBay, Froogle and shopping.com -- without any special technical knowledge required.  This gives store owners an unlimited market to tap, with literally thousands of potential new customers to attract, and allows them to expand their online presence to keep up with growing consumer interest in buying goods and services over the Internet.

Third-party research has shown that online merchants and directories provide superior conversions, higher values per order and more revenue per lead than leading portals and search engines.  With Aplus Connectors and a MivaMerchant online store, product data can automatically be uploaded to any of the four sites. 

Afterwards, it is easy to update and maintain inventories so that customers searching for products on the web find the most current information available.  Whether adding new products, removing old products, updating pricing, or making changes to product descriptions, storeowners will be able to leverage the power of these popular sites. 

Connectors make online, multi-channel retailing a reality for small to medium sized business owners eager to increase sales in today's competitive marketplace.  As e-commerce sales grow, the Internet will no longer be considered a minor channel compared with traditional retail channel outlets but will become an essential and viable part of a SMB's overall business strategy.

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Author

Tina Stillions

Tina Stillions
Public Relations Manager
Aplus.Net

For more information on Aplus.Net or Aplus Connectors, visit www.aplus.net. View Tina Stillions`s profile for more
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