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 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,? 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%.
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 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.
?Folks are exercising their desire to support local stores where local is not just in their town, but anywhere in the country,? said Michael Walden, a professor who studies regional economics at North Carolina State University. ?A large number of Americans have a general suspicion of bigness in the economic world ? they equate bigness with power, monopoly.?
Lacy Simons, owner of Hello Hello Books in Maine, a small store with an e-commerce site, says she is seeing customers ?cement their determination to shop local? ? which on the internet, means shopping at the smaller vendors ? even when the big sites offer lower prices.
?We know there?s only so much that we can do to compete against them, so you end up relying on what hopefully becomes an emotional or personal connection with the retailer online,? Simons said.
The battle between supersites and small online retailers became pitched this holiday season, as the big sites raked in the money.
In November and December, the 25 biggest online retailers, including Amazon.com, Target.com and Walmart.com, received 70% of e-commerce dollars spent, an increase of three percentage points over last year, comScore said.
Amazon, the world?s biggest internet retailer,
has been the leader in aggressive promotions that small sites can?t afford to match ? and has received the most criticism.
This holiday season, Amazon offered price cuts on almost all holiday gifts; it can do this in part because of its size and profits, analysts said. Amazon says it is helping small online businesses stay afloat by allowing them to sell on Amazon, through its Marketplace program, and take advantage of Amazon?s large customer base, technology and marketing. Sellers
pay a percentage of revenue in return.