This coming week, Borders Bookstores is likely going to declare bankruptcy. It's a very sad sight to see as I personally love books. Barnes and Nobles its larger competitor is also facing financial difficulties. A great deal of this is related to the current economic downturn which has affected all business to some degree or another. Another significant part however is related to the rise of online giants like Amazon and to a lesser extent stores like Alibris. A similar situation is faced by companies like Block Buster whose once ubiquitous stores are largely extinct or seem be becoming so. In this case, the competitor Netflix appears to have been the principal reason. Both of these situations reflect the changing nature of business in face of the internet age and demonstrate that conventional brick and mortar stores must come to terms with a powerful tool or a potential devastating source of competition. In the case of Borders for example, it did work to establish a web presence sometime ago, but was not able to develop it sufficiently to compete successfully. The reasons for this are unclear to me.All this is said to demonstrate how powerful the internet is in establishing a business. An individual without the financial resources to open up an expensive conventional retail store can feasibly open up a successful online business which as early as fifteen years ago may not have been realistic. That fact does not mean that you can simply start pulling in cash from day one. The existence of large internet retailers has increasingly narrowed many online markets. In fact competing online can be more expensive since this typically requires pay per click advertising to reach potential customers. If this is the case, is an internet business truly an option for the average man or woman on the street.Indeed it can. However the potential online business owner must do his or her work extensively and determine where they can realistically compete with. This typically involves extensive niche research to insure that the competition is low enough to allow a newcomer to enter the market and also that there is sufficient demand for the product or service you give to mean that your endeavors are sufficiently rewarded. Niche research can be done using a number of fairly simple to use free and paid tools. While these tools do not provide a one hundred percent guarantee, they can greatly increase the possibility of seeing your investment in time and money is successful.