So when did everyone get their first email address? ‘95? ‘97? Then when did you finally feel comfortable buying something online, giving out your credit card information without fear of getting your life stolen from you? ‘98 maybe? Back then, could you imagine purchasing the majority of what you buy online instead of in stores? If it’s not your reality now, it’s pretty darn close. Now, I bet you have absolutely no problem letting amazon or ebay remember your cc numbers. Simply amazing what can happen in 10 years.

Well, online retail has officially been around for 13 or 14 years, according to shop.org. And it’s not going anywhere anytime soon (obviously). But what’s really interesting is that it’s showing absolutely no signs of saturation whatsoever. In fact, according to Forrester Research, online retail grew 25% last year, and it’s expected to grow 18% this year.

What’s even more interesting is that the study doesn’t take into account buying decisions that are made online but made in brick-and-mortar stores. Buyers are increasing looking to blogs and other social media outlets to help them make decisions. So online retail will officially grow 18% this year, but what percentage of buying decisions will be made online? With the increasing popularity of blogs and video, online retail growth might be more than they expect.

According to a recent study from Hitwise, social networking sites are driving an increasing amount of traffic to shopping and classified sites. Google, in its association with MySpace is set to capitalize on this new trend. The search engine will no doubt be able to increase its lead over Yahoo and MSN and be able to increase its advertising prices accordingly.

But what about marketers who are trying to tap into this incredible increase in social media? How can they cost effectively use all of the new tools available, such as RSS, subscriptions and podcasting? With a blog, and an innovative blog marketing company.

The benefits of self publishing through a corporate blog are very clear. Progressive marketers are already using RSS, podcasting and social media to build their brands.  This gives them a powerful competitive advantage which will lead to increased market share. Soon a corporate blog will be as essential a business tool as a corporate website.