AuctionBytes had an interesting interview with Nanette Thorell from http://www.enchantedhen.com/. Cute business name yea!

Nanette sells from all sorts of places online. But nothing beats the profit from her own website.

That’s true. Selling from other channels online are a great way to generate the traffic, but having a site that you can call your own is really where the business is!

Nanette also mentioned that it’s not difficult to set up your own site and that she drives traffic to her site using article and blog marketing. Not forgetting social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook too.

Nanette sells unique ostrich eggshell jewelry.

One of the challenges she faces in attracting visitors is that her items are not widely searched for – “if people come across them accidentally, they think “wow this is cool, must have” – but the casual shopper doesn’t go looking for it specifically,” she says.

Click here if you’d like to set up your blog for free now.

eMarketer forecasts that after two years of subpar growth, 2010 US retail e-commerce sales (excluding travel) will climb by 12.7% on volume of $152 billion.

This follows the US Census Bureau’s release showing that online sales in Q4 2009 grew by 14.6% over a year earlier, the biggest gain in eight quarters.

Online sales growth outperforms total retail growth because shoppers are moving more of their purchases from stores to the Web to take advantage of lower prices, convenience and selection.

Online travel sales will total $92.5 billion in 2010, a 4.6% annual increase.

This too will be a positive development after sales plummeted by 6.7% in 2009. Together, online retail and online travel will equal $244.6 billion in 2010 and grow at a 9% compound annual rate from 2009 to 2014.

This year, 162 million people in the US will research products online, and much of this research will lead to in-store purchases. Over 82% of online researchers, or 133 million people, will be online buyers. The percent of online buyers will rise as young Internet users, predisposed to e-commerce, replace older users.

Looks like the Facebook buzz is definitely gonna stay here for a while. It’s so overwhelming that many businesses are already using it as a way to reconnect with customers or future customers!

TopRank have an interesting article months ago (oops). It mentioned that an average user in Facebook is connected to 60 pages. Probably these statistic has increased now.

So what does that means for business?

Do you want to make your page more engaging and stand out for the rest? Sure you do!

Here’s what TopRank recommends for a more effective social media marketing program for your business:

1. Be unique
2. Don’t use a generic landing page
4. Use a large profile picture
5. Tag fans in photos
6. Use contests
7. Integrate multiple social networks
8. Thank people for becoming your fans
9. Don’t treat your fans like kids
10. Keep at it