With the rise of online commerce, you would think small businesses would be worried about the impact on their brick-and-mortar stores.
Not so, according to a Wells Fargo/Gallup survey. Businesses are evenly split between whether they think e-commerce is helping or hurting them, but nearly seven out of 10 survey respondents said it is not having much impact on their operations.
“The results, broadly speaking, show that the disruptive change e-commerce is bringing about is not a net negative for the nation’s small businesses,” Gallup says.
According to the latest Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index, conducted July 11-18, 16 percent of small-business owners think e-commerce is hurting them, 15 percent think it is helping them, and 68 percent think it’s not having much impact.
“Owners do anticipate that more of their business will be conducted online in the future,” Gallup Frank Newport and Coleen McMurray say. “Twenty-two percent of owners say more than a quarter of their business is currently transacted online, but 32 percent expect that to be the case within the next five years. Still, even with a five-year time horizon in mind, the majority of owners project that a quarter or less of their business will be online, including about a third who say none of it will be.”
