Apparantly most small to midsize business owners seem to think so! A new survey from shows that 70% of small business owners expect online sales to increase or at least remain steady, despite an increasingly shaky economy.

Perhaps that's because you don't have to drive to the Internet to go shopping? (Couldn't resist. I paid four bucks a gallon this week to fill up my mini-van.)

Of those surveyed, most were smaller companies (45% only owned one domain).

Also interesting; a big chunk of those surveyed are not primarily reliant on ecommerce. (59% only get 25% or less of their total revenues from web transactions. 20% aren't even tracking what percentage of the business comes from online sales.)

Maybe these companies aren't so worried about declining eSales because they're too worried about their bricks and mortar storefronts.

If your company hasn't diversified at least a chunk of its revenues from online, now is the time I believe.

Diversification is the key word in all this. Expanding your business online means you can do business with markets not necessarily as affected by economic conditions weighing down revenues in your own neck of the woods. Maybe it's time to jump into the global economy.

Other things to remember: people don't stop buying stuff during a recession. They just buy less and tend to bargain shop for a cheaper price.

Hmmm.. can you say eBay?