(The First in an Occasional Series… The second article, “Building Your Website,” can be found here.)

That the Web is reinventing retail is old news, even as the full impact has yet to be felt; that even the smallest retailer has to be in the game might not be.

With the rise of ecommerce, the retail landscape has been completely remade. While outsourcing and globalization were already commodifying just about every product and niche, the Web accelerated the process exponentially. The Web puts expert opinions, buyer’s reviews, and, on some cases, wholesale pricing at the consumer’s fingertips. Moreover, the virtual marketplace puts comparison shopping but a mouse-click away. As has been noted, somewhat ruefully, by retail experts everywhere, it’s now a consumer’s market. The consumer can now get what she wants, when she wants it, at a good price, and in a color other than black.

Lest you think that your niche is impervious to the Web-ification of retail, think again, this time of Zappos.com. Zappos.com was born in 1999, back when the thought of selling shoes online ran against conventional online market-think at the time. Sure, you could sell something that didn’t require sizing sight unseen like books, but shoes? No way. Folks needed to try shoes on, walk around a bit, and talk to a salesman. In 2005, Zappos.com saw gross sales of $370 million. The point is, no matter how obscure or particular your product or service is, you’re facing the digital competition.

To remain viable, any retailer, no matter how small, needs a website to go with the bricks-and-mortar enterprise. The scale depends on your needs. A more modest investment might be a simple branding web presence that runs under ten pages and includes information about your products or services and contact info. To save money, you can use one of the website templates supplied by your web-hosting company. (Look up “web-hosting” in a search engine.) Such a site, with various traffic analytics, will cost you under $20 a month to maintain. It is money well-spent, and the return on investment is orders of magnitude greater than traditional marketing channels. Exposure to your product now transcends physical geography.

At the other end of the scale is a robust, fully-enabled e-commerce site with an online catalog and a shopping cart. For such a website, the sky is the limit when it comes to budget. Customers can view and purchase product through a completely automated process. But this sells your product directly to millions of Web surfers worldwide 24/7. To make your online business really hum, you should develop a marketing campaign that includes banners ads and pay-per-click advertising. This isn’t inexpensive, but the pay-off is substantial. You’ll have to staff up to handle all the business.

Though e-commerce is only a fraction (some say 2%) of overall retail sales, it is safe to say that the future of retail is digital commerce and marketing. And if you’re not on the bandwagon, you’ll soon be left in the dust.