SmallBusinessNewz

USPS Aims To Grow Online Retailers Sales Via Catalogs

The U.S. Postal Service is reaching out to ecommerce retailers with a campaign focusing on the power of catalogs with potential to double online transactions and boost revenue 100 percent by creating print extensions of their shopping websites.

Overstock Launches Store For Small Businesses

Overstock.com has launched its new Main Street Store as retail channel for U.S. small businesses. The store is the focus of Overstock's Main Street Revolution Initiative. The store carries over 2,500 products from small and minority-owned business across the U.S. Categories include furniture, jewelry, apparel, and gourmet food.

FSB Calls For Better Broadband Service

One week ago, the BBC published the results of a survey showing that 79 percent of adults worldwide view Internet access as a fundamental right (the figure was 75 percent in the UK).  This may give the Federation of Small Businesses a strong leg to stand on as it pushes for better broadband service for small firms.

Forrester Predicts 10% Growth Rate For Online Retail

There's good news this afternoon for small business owners who sell things online: Forrester Research believes the online retail sector will continue to take off, making the U.S. market alone worth about $250 billion by 2014.

IE8 Incompatibility Still A Significant Issue

The browser wars are, if you haven't noticed, being waged pretty much full force.  Fast new versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera keep getting released on a regular basis, which is fine, or even great.  Except that many sites aren't compatible with IE8, according to Microsoft.

comScore: Online Shopping Trends Still Strong

"So far, so good" is the main message conveyed by new stats from comScore.  More money's been spent online during the first five weeks of the November-December shopping season this year than last, and social media marketing efforts appear to be succeeding, too.

Black Friday Results Point To Positive Trend

What many people regard as the official start of the holiday shopping season went quite well, according to statistics from comScore.  Indeed - although it's too early to tell for sure - Black Friday appeared to point the way towards retail sites experiencing a better season this year than last.

Cyber Monday Participation Headed Up This Year

Small businesses that don't have something planned for Cyber Monday may want to reconsider.  It looks like the vast majority of retailers intend to hold a promotion of one sort or another, which could make acknowledging the shopping event a semi-necessity.

What You Can Learn from Amazon to Increase Holiday Sales

There is a reason Amazon is widely known as one of the biggest retailers online (if not the biggest). The company knows what it's doing. Amazon has appeared in headlines recently for a number of reasons, and a fair amount of them are related to different things the company has been doing to increase its sales as the holiday season approaches. While as a small business, you don't likely have the clout that Amazon does, they do employ strategies that you can learn from in order to potentially increase your own sales. 1. Mobile Payments

Free Shipping Day May Bring You a Sales Boost

December 17th is National Free Shipping Day in the U.S. That means that on that day, consumers all over the country are going to be looking for great deals with free shipping options. While, if you can swing it, free shipping is always an attractive offering to customers, it would probably be a good idea to at least try it out on that day for a potential boost in business.