Online Shoppers Are Rooting for the Little Guy

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/business/some-shoppers-rebel-against-giant-web-retailers.html?_r=2


Mike Stewart boxed up the inventory left over after his going-out-of-business sale at Feather & Fly, a sporting-goods store in Chattanooga, Tenn.

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD and CLAIRE CAIN MILLER
Published: January 15, 2012

Harold Pollack used to spend $1,000 a year on Amazon, but this fall started buying from small online retailers instead. The prices are higher, but Dr. Pollack says he now has a clear conscience.

“I don’t feel they behave in a way that I want to support with my consumer dollars,” Dr. Pollack, a professor in Chicago, said of the big Internet retailers.

Giant e-commerce companies like Amazon are acting increasingly like their big-box brethren as they extinguish small competitors with discounted prices, free shipping and easy-to-use apps. Big online retailers had a 19 percent jump in revenue over the holidays versus 2010, while at smaller online retailers growth was just 7 percent.

The little sites are fighting back with some tactics of their own, like preventing price comparisons or offering freebies that an anonymous large site can’t. And in a new twist, they are also exploiting the sympathies of shoppers like Dr. Pollack by encouraging customers to think of them as the digital version of a mom-and-pop shop facing off against Walmart: If you can’t shop close to home, at least shop small.

FULL story at link.