... but too few retailers have transactional sites

E-commerce specialist Actinic is about to release the results of its fourth annual survey on the state of small and medium online retailers.

The company surveyed more than 500 people in the retail sector, and findings are expected to show a significant rise in the number of success stories.

Profitable e-commerce sites rose to 72 per cent this year, from 53 per cent last year.

However, the survey shows that the number of transactional sites is still pitifully small. Just 3 per cent of the companies interviewed operated transactional Web sites.

According to the report's author, this throws up a worrying trend: that consumer growth on the Internet could be limited by the lack of Web sites equipped to process online transactions.

'With demand growing much faster than supply, the business opportunity for retailers is greater now than during the dotcom boom,' said Actinic chief executive officer Chris Barling. 'Relatively few are cashing in, but those that do are seeing their profits rise.'

According to the survey, the companies that are first to embrace e-tailing are small and entrepreneurial in nature.

The report found that 40 per cent of e-commerce businesses are online only, or pure-play Internet companies. Some 70 per cent of e-commerce sites are run by companies with 10 employees or less.

However, rather than lacking a business case for setting up on the Web, more companies than last year see the lack of resources available to them as a barrier.