As recently as five years ago, major business publications were printing articles predicting the decline of online shopping stores. Some experts believed that e-commerce was a fad, something that would die down in time. How useful could online stores be, particularly for goods like clothing, shoes and jewelry, which people want to see, touch or test before they make a purchase?

The continuing success of business to consumer trusted online retailers like Amazon and ebay have proven that e-commerce is here to stay and will continue to grow. It's a safe bet that online shopping will only increase in popularity as more and more people depend on the internet for their everyday needs. For example, consider the amount of money that Americans have been spending each Cyber Friday. Cyber Friday is the Internet's answer to Black Friday, the post-Thanksgiving shopping blowout. In 2011, American consumers spent a whopping $1. 25 billion, a 22% increase from the previous year's total.

More people are willing to spend cash online for a number of reasons. After several years of development, e-commerce has now evolved into a a safe and reliable method to trade products. Not only that, consumers prefer to buy from online shopping stores, because they have access to much more than what is available locally and by comparing trusted online retailers they can get it at the best price.

Well established trusted online retailers such as Amazon and buy. com have been riding the e-commerce trend and raking in profits for years  stream2watch. Other major retailers that have a huge real world presence such as Best Buy and Macy's have also been broadening their online presence. Fortunately you don't have to be a major business in order to build an online store. In fact, millions of small businesses have previously made the move online and more are doing it every single day.

There are some businesses that already have a brick and mortar store in a local community. They want to reach customers beyond their is bordered by to increase profits for the business. Building an online store is the perfect way to do this. There are also many people who sell exclusively online, which saves a lot of expenses such as booking a store and hiring sales agent. A lot of small businesses got their start through e-commerce and continue to be very successful. There is definitely no doubt online shopping stores are going to be around for a long time.