Guess What? - 2006 Online Sales Increased from 2005

In a late and ho-hum manner, comScore Networks announced that 2006 online sales grew over 26% from the year ago period. Ho-hum because thats pretty much been the case for the last few years. It now stands at a whopping $100 billion in online sales for the Nov 1 to Dec 28 period in the U.S.

This records only the actual sales - you can bet even more people VISITED the website of the seller before they bought the item in a store. I know I did. (Especially when some of the shopping I did was on Dec 23 - a little late for even FedEx!)

What that should tell us that is that your web presence should be more important than ever for doing business. Even if you don't 'sell' anything on your website, having visitors come to your website influences their purchasing decision in the future, AND brands your name and key attributes in their mind. It's a fact that ONLY 2% (usually less) of visitors to a website make contact or buy from a website. What that means is for every 2 leads or transactions, there were likely 98 more prospects that visited the website. That's 49 times more!

Use that fact to your advantage, and keep it in mind when preparing your marketing and advertising budget. With a good online marketing program, you can have thousands of 'invisible buyers' that may buy from you, whether by phone, website or in person.

Thanks for reading and have a Happy New Year!