Small Businesses Made Big Holiday Sales

According to comScore, small e-tailers won a healthy portion of the estimated $35B spent online during the 2011 holiday season.

How did they do it?

• They were nimble. Smaller e-tailers were able to respond faster to shopping trends, putting them at the front of the holiday demand.
• They had deep knowledge of their product lines. Big players like Amazon and Buy.com try to carry everything under the sun. Which makes it difficult to have a staff that has expert level knowledge about each product line. Niche sites are able to go deep and answer very specific questions consumers have about the product. This is especially important for gift giving, where the buyer may need reassurance that they’re on the right track with their purchase.
• They used social media effectively. Smaller e-tailers harnessed the power of social media and used it to their advantage. Whether it was to build loyalty, announce sales, or let shoppers know when inventory was low on popular products, e-tailers used this medium as much as they could and reaped the results.

Want to learn more about the successes that etailers saw this year? Read the complete article on Internet Retailer.com.