Can Small Businesses make it online in a world dominated by giants?

[mandy]

Small businesses have their share of difficulties, but do they have any chance of succeeding in a world dominated by eBay, Amazon and the like? The short answer is yes -- if they combine the right mix of technology, marketing and customer service.

"The goliaths of the online world are everywhere. The biggest struggle young companies face when bringing their business online is getting noticed,"...

Other areas of concern include buying and housing the inventory, managing the fulfillment and customer service, and driving customers to the site. "Paid search or SEO (search engine optimization) is really the most effective way, but those are difficult and expensive," ...

full article: http://ecommercetimes.com/story/mydkyHz2...line.xhtml

[xppman]

Now there is a story I can agree with. 

[misteroriginal]

You know, big companies have problems that the little guys don't. I'm surprised he didn't talk about that. For example, huge companies frequently have to split their site according to regions, languages, product categories, etc, which absolutely kills their SEO. A site with a zillion page might have only a fraction indexed, which is another headache that's a lot easier for the little guy to solve.

[stardust]

Building a Web site is undoubtedly a huge hurdle to overcome, but tools like eBay's ProStores help alleviate this problem somewhat, Sucharita Mulpuru, senior analyst at Forrester Research, told the E-commerce Times.

It's because of quotes like this that I don't give much credence to many articles.  It should read:

"Don't use tools like eBay's ProStores, because they will exacerbate this problem tremendously!"
Jerks -- One jerk to say it in the first place, and another jerk to quote it in the article...

[xppman]

So true. I've come to learn that most articles like this are
leading up to trying to "sell"
a product or service. Anyone with a snazzy web article is
now supposed to be the authority on such shit.

It really is funny and I usually don't even read most of them.
The captions brought in here usually tell of what the premise is of the article.
Just and shit who got paid to endorse someone's flaked product or service. 

In the real world a good product stands on it's own merit and will become popular
buy it's existence alone.

I remember some scooters some company was trying to sell.
They paid a bunch of buzz marketers to ride them all over some campus out in CA.

Must have really worked. Like I said i can't even remember what the name was or what made them the "got to have" deal. 

[BellisimaJ.]

Xp, I know you aren't saying that marketing doesn't work.

Marketing does work, IMo. But it has to be the right kind of marketing, in the right places, at the right time. Very cliche, but also true.

What do you do for marketing?

I am looking at my sites as two different businesses. On the one hand, I have jewelry, primarily considered "art-to-wear". Branding of that type of product is difficult because there is so much competition. I am thinking I will hire a PR person to market my jewlery/myself as an entity. My interest/goal there would be in freebie mentions in upscale magazines, etc. This method seems to be quite sucessful for this type of a product.

I know I'm off-topic here, but your remarks brought this to mind. 

[bargainbloodhound]

For example, huge companies frequently have to split their site according to regions, languages, product categories, etc, which absolutely kills their SEO.

If their SEO was killed they wouldn't dominate the first page of search results for popular search terms  in all of the search engines.  :

big companies have problems

Like I care.  Large corporations make me

[misteroriginal]

[quote author=bargainbloodhound link=topic=4627.msg19737#msg19737 date=1154738621]

For example, huge companies frequently have to split their site according to regions, languages, product categories, etc, which absolutely kills their SEO.

If their SEO was killed they wouldn't dominate the first page of search results for popular search terms  in all of the search engines.  :
[/quote]Look. They hire a bunch of hamsters to crank it back up again.

The point to be happy about is a tiny website for the little guy has some advantages.

Who cares? Bad article, Mandy. Retract it.

[valleygirl]

Other areas of concern include buying and housing the inventory, managing the fulfillment and customer service, and driving customers to the site.

Inventory management and fulfillment have been the biggest obstacles we've had to overcome as we've grown.  Finding affordable office and warehouse space when we outgrew our original space was difficult too.  Sourcing products has been the least difficult.