A March 2008 Ottawa Business Journal article located here, puts it simply;

..Forrester Research report from January says the value of online retail in the U.S. alone reached $175 billion in 2007 and is expected to grow to $335 billion by 2012, partly because retailers are moving away from the bricks-and-mortar format to the higher-margin web-based storefronts

Secondly, in Canada, a Canadian Business article points out that of roughly 2.3 Million businesses in Canada, an infinitesimal 0.3% have 500 or more employees. The remainder is all in the small business / medium business space.

As I have written on this site , and others have written elsewhere, the internet is the ultimate leveler. But it won’t do it by itself.

As the above Ottawa Business Journal article states, if your customers have to click through more than 5 levels, you will most likely lose them. So as SMB owners or managers, it is incumbent on ourselves to ensure that the web storefront is optimized to get some of that traffic and dollars. Our web sites must be optimized, they must be quick, clean, and accurate.

Even if you are not set up for true “e-Commerce”, and rely on a local market, you must ensure that your site is found, you must ensure that it presents you as effectively as possible, and that your service, your product, and your value can be seen effectively and quickly. And ensure that finding your location or contact information is dead easy.