This has caused small business owners to complain to the Retail Industry Leaders Association about the unfair competition. Just when you thought you had seen and heard it all, Amazon takes on a brave move to take business away from small business owners. Amazon has released a free app for iphone and smart phone users so that consumers can then go into any brick and mortar business, find something they are interested in, scan the bar code and see if Amazon has it at a lower cost. This is the reason that small business owners are so mad. Of course, the product has to be an exact match. MORE >>

leaving the retailer with $7.50 Are online coupons good for small businesses? Like every marketing strategy , coupons have good points and bad points. It all comes back to management and control – lose control and you can cause serious damage to your business. That was the case with one (of many according to social gossip) business who decided to run a campaign through Groupon. While much has been said about Groupon’s role in the demise of this business, the business owner has to take some responsibility. Group deals do need careful attention. Groupon charged $7.50 MORE >>

If you run an off line retail shop and you’re wondering how you can compete with your online counterparts, well, don’t think you can’t. The brick and mortar retailer, however, can market themselves online and take payments off line – even in cash – which gives you a stealthy advantage over your online counterparts. This advantage doesn’t just extend to large retailers. You might actually have an advantage. Online-only stores have no way to take cash payments. If a customer prefers to pay cash, that’s too bad. Don’t believe me? MORE >>

If you sell shoes in a retail shop in Wayzata and don’t do any selling through an online store, then ranking globally makes no sense. Many small business owners wonder whether or not it is possible to rank locally and globally at the same time for the same keywords. The answer is, yes. But you may not want to rank globally at all. You should stick to local Internet marketing. But what if you are a regional or national shoe store chain? Then you can rank locally for each store in your chain and pursue global search rankings as well. You should pursue those local rankings in Maps. MORE >>

The National Retail Federation reports that 51.8% A couple of weeks ago I predicted that the Christmas holiday season would set a new record for online shopping. Well, it appears that I was right. Are you surprised? of shoppers this year plan to shop online. And guess what? out of 10 of them are starting before Halloween. More than 50% will start their shopping online before Thanksgiving. And these consumers plan to purchase nearly 40% of their entire gift selections online. That’s nothing to sneeze at! Have You Started Your Online Christmas Marketing Yet? MORE >>