Close to 30 percent of small businesses in the U.S. are estimating that their ecommerce sales will increase over the next 12 to 24 months, according to the Small Business Research Board study out now.
Around 97 percent of respondents said they expect Internet sales to stay the same or increase during the next one to two years, 29 percent said they expect revenue to increase.
The poll found that 67 percent believe their Internet sales will remain the same during this same period and 3 percent predict their Internet sales will decrease.
The study also points out the gap between businesses that have embraced the Internet and those that have not.
“The importance of this study extends far beyond predicting revenue trends,” said Gregg M. Steinberg, President of Business Today. “The information clearly illustrates that there are many companies which are either not availing themselves of the opportunities to sell products and services on the web and thus losing the opportunity to generate additional revenue.”
“While the web may not be suitable for every business, there are many companies which have integrated eCommerce capabilities into their Internet sites are generating sales — and expecting the web to continue growing as an important revenue source,” Steinberg added.
Forty-two of the respondents said their firms did not have a Web site.
The majority of firms (47%) had one Web site while 7 percent of the business had between two and five Web sites, 2 percent had six to ten sites, and .09 percent had more than 10 sites.
A total of 17 percent of respondents that had Internet sites in 2006 said they generated up to 10 percent of their company’s total revenue from Internet sales.
Another 14 percent said they generated from 11 percent to 25 percent of their revenue from ecommerce and 10 percent said they made from 26 percent to 50 percent of their overall revenue from their Internet sites.
