Campaign launched to defend online retailers

We all know retailers are under pressure on the high street, but a new campaign from hosting company Amenworld suggests that independent shop keepers are having just as rough a time online.

Drawing on research released a little while back by directline.com, Amenworld highlights that 61% of UK consumers were more likely to buy from a website of a ‘household name’ retailer rather than an e-commerce site without a presence on the high street.

The fact that consumers shop with brands they trust online or offline is no surprise.  That said small online retailers are able to build trust with customers in niche audiences very effectively online thanks to a whole range of tools including, blogging, newsletters, Facebook, forums, or even twitter. The world is a lot flatter and a lot fairer online.

The need for a campaign to support independent online retailers as if they were under threat, is therefore debatable.  After all even the directline.com survey would suggest a sizeable 39% of consumers are happy to shop online with independent e-commerce stores.

Big store vs little store scare stories aside, the Amenworld campaign offers free publicity, promotion, inbound links and more to those that join, so this may be worth having as long as it doesn’t matter where your site is hosted.