Indie retailers face many challenges from Amazon and other large online players. To compete, it's helpful to first acknowledge competitors' strengths and general market trends:

1. Selection: Amazon enables customers to search millions of items online.
   • Amazon has 2 million merchants selling via its platform.
   • The 2 million merchants sell an estimated 550 million items. (On average, merchants are listing about 225 items.)
   • Amazon's retail sales and third-party sales total about $200 billion.
   • Amazon uses a variety of avenues to keep customers roped into its ecosystem, including television streaming, Whole Foods, and more.
2. Mobile Convenience: it's increasingly easier to shop on your mobile phone vs. drive to the store.
3. Smarter: you can search millions of products—and the software will likely do the 'thinking' for you. Amazon's software shows you the most popular items, the ones with the best reviews, etc. In essence, the software tells you the best item for you.

Most indie stores are at a disadvantage when it comes to responding to these trends. In general:

1. Indie stores often have little or no selection online.
2. Indie stores often don't have a mobile-friendly website.
3. Indie stores often don't have the software to show customers 'smart' search results.

Below we share how you can overcome these obstacles.