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A study recently completed by Vendio, a multichannel ecommerce solutions company, found that small and mid-sized online retailers are highly confident in the future of ecommerce. Vendio took into account the longevity and history of each responding retailer, which helped establish whether or not ecommerce was something the sellers considered at the time of startup. Among those who participated, 26 percent claim to have been ecommerce sellers for more than a decade, while 30 percent fall in the one to four year bracket. Twenty percent of surveyed retailers are newcomers, so feedback encompasses all experience levels almost evenly.

Nearly 85 percent of all respondents expressed optimism about their growth potential while utilizing email marketing and web stores as primary facets of their business. Just over 60 percent of those surveyed found their profits to be up to par, however. Many surveyed online retailers cited eBay and Amazon.com as satisfying venues for selling, leaning slightly more in favor of eBay for ease of use, with 80 percent user satisfaction compared to 76 percent for Amazon. This investigation into online retail experience also reveals sellers' responses to online sales generated by these sites. In general, retailers were more impressed by the process of using online stores than with the resulting sales. Even so, Vendio found retailers maintain a bright outlook for the future of online commerce.

A large percentage of surveyed sellers replied that they believe online shopping will continue to gain momentum as a result of the increasing popularity of tablets and other mobile devices. With a record number of stores now having mobile apps in addition to websites, Vendio's study points out that more customers than ever before rely on these digital shopping outlets when making a purchase. One-third of retailers surveyed are moving to online stores as a result of this shift, though not all will maintain their own sites. For 26 percent of respondents planning to move online, Amazon and eBay are the hubs of choice.