The Giants Move, What It Means to America's Small Business

“There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.” -- General Douglas MacArthur

The way consumers and customers access their local shop is significantly changing. It’s about to go online in a big way, shifting away from the more traditional. The 800 pound gorilla in the room, EBay wants to take over the local phone directory as the first place customers find local services, according to a recent Wall Street Journal ($$) report. It will take a lead from its German operations and first focus next year on local auto services and brake jobs but its ultimate goal is obviously to draw in consumers of all local businesses.

Owners of Meineke, Midas, Big-O Tires and all other franchise units, did you hear that? The way to market to your customers locally is about to change and do so quickly. WSJ states that the service and repair market is a “$34 billion-a-year market.” Consumers are already changing the way they shop for such services but this is about to accelerate. It will greatly affect pricing and competition among local shops. Oh yeah. And the other giant, Google is joining in too with its new service Google Base. Yahoo is honing in too.

There is a major grab for the “local search” market, where consumers can use a local search engine to find oil lube and car repair shops in a specific neighborhood, locate the shop on a map and read customer reviews and rankings of the shops’ services! These services will morph into free classified-type ads that are searchable by keywords online. To visualize where the industry is going in a hurry, think of EBay’s Craigslist or NexTag for comparison shopping. Local classified site Service listings on Craigslist have roughly doubled from September of last year and are clearly where the market is heading. These firms can back up directory listings, rankings, classified ads, and comparison shopping with online pay services like EBay's PayPal.

Yellow pages are trying to fight back by joining the band wagon. “Traditional yellow-pages companies are trying to defend themselves against online threats by beefing up their online offerings.”

All of this change in consumer habits and resources means there will be considerable opportunity for local franchises and businesses who take advantage of these trend that are about to accelerate in their neighborhood.