Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Right around this time of year, we get all kinds of post-this and post-that reports. The news is full of statistics about revenues, sales, returns, gift-cards, and everything under the sun. But it`s all about the big retailers, publicly held corporations, and other Wall Street companies.

There`s a passing nod to "small business," but that often means a going concern with nearly $1-million in annual revenues, or a company with 50 or so employees. What about us---the little guys?

I don`t think anyone yet has a good way to analyze online sales, other than to say it`s going up and up. I`d guess that without any invasion of privacy, companies like PayPal can say that the gross dollar amount in transactions moving through their systems during December, would be this or that. Is that how they "know" that online e-commerce is growing or shrinking?

How did you do, this Christmas season? Did you experience a spike in sales? Do you forecast a slowdown during the first quarter of 2008? Is the housing slump affecting your business?

How do you think the analysts calculate the trends in e-commerce, or do you have some concrete information about it? If you`ve been in business more than one year, would you say increased sales are due to e-commerce acceptance, or is it simply that you`ve been around for a year, and are naturally growing?

How large do you think the entrepreneurial sector is, in terms of the overall economy and our impact on the "numbers?" For example, we know that first-time unemployment sign-ups are some number, but what about people who quit their corporate job to start a business? They don`t sign up for unemployment benefits; they just simply "disappear," in relation to the statistical analyses...right?

Retailers are moaning about how they didn`t do as well as expected. What about us? What about you? Did you do better than you thought, worse, or pretty much have no change in your sales and revenues resulting from the holidays?

Generally speaking, how would you assess the standard business events of the 2007 holiday season, from a 1-owner perspective, or perhaps that of your business with a couple of employees.

Craig, I don`t have any answers as I am not up and running yet nor do I provide retail service, but you certainly pose some food for thought.......I am very interested in hearing the responses....

We (3 employees, including myself) experienced tremendous growth in 2007, as our online sales were double our 2006 numbers.  I attribute some of this to our general business growth (entering our 3rd year of online sales and 5th year of business) and some to growth of internet sales generally:  consumers trust online sales more than they used to, prices are more competitive, delivery is faster, higher gas prices keeping people home, and other factors.  This is the first year that our online sales have outpaced bricks and mortar (toys & home decor) and I hope this trend continues!

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Rich Sloan , Co-Founder, Chief Startupologist, StartupNation

Kathy and I were just talking tonight about another aspect of simply having time to be in business, and that`s customer followers. We`ve noticed that as we enter our second year, we`re getting more orders, which I think partly is due to the number of testimonials we`re starting to get. It`s the first-implementers taking the risks, but there are only a few. Then, when they`ve paved the way, the regular folks who may be a bit more nervous, finally come onboard.

So it seems there`s another reason to try to stay in business past the 2-year mark. Funny as it sounds, that`s a sort of "longevity," which speaks well for the new business. Toyman; you`re in your third year, and it seems that`s also a portentious number. We`re looking forward to next year, but certainly excited about this year! :-)

What`s interesting to me is that all the standard economic indicators rely on companies that have been in business many years. Projections reports often refer to someone like Wal-Mart, with trend data for the year, then "same-store" numbers, from the current and past years.

None of this type of data applies to startups. Yet we hear that the small-business and entrepreneurial "cottage industry" sector is growing by leaps and bounds. It seems to me there isn`t much of a way to track the actual movement within this home-based business sector, right? We know people are leaving corporate jobs for the single-owner startups, but past that...what?

I think there`s a tremendous business opportunity here, for someone who`s skilled in statistical analysis and surveys. I just bumped into "realclearpolitics.com," which was designed by two guys in their spare time to make it easier to get a consolidated view of polling data. They "solved a problem."

There`s another major problem in this business sector. Aside from no organized data, that I can see, there`s also the sense of being alone that entrepreneurs have. Look how we all rally at the annual statistics regarding e-commerce growth, consumer confidence in online shopping, and the spread of the home-based business? Imagine how we`d feel if we could read each year that "X" number of sole-proprietorships had a "Y%" increase in shopping this year?