Online shopping isn’t the wave of the future; it’s many buyers’ choice for purchasing today.

“It’s an Internet world,” says Karen Finney, Carolina Pottery manager. “Everyone does more and more shopping online and we’re excited the Chamber offers a link from its Shop-Dine-Stay website to our website.”

Finney is excited because the company’s website received the most page impressions (“search” hits) in the first quarter of 2008 from Shop-Dine-Stay. The Chamber’s shopdinestayknoxville.com site came online in late 2006 with traffic to the site continually multiplying.

“The Chamber was looking to offer a greater resource for its members in retail, dining, and lodging,” says Mark Field, Chamber vice president of membership. “Many of these company’s managers and employees face scheduling conflicts that keep them from attending Chamber education forums and event functions. It’s just the nature of what it takes to run these businesses; they don’t have a lot of free time.” ‘So’, we started asking ourselves, ‘what would be the most beneficial thing we could do for these companies that would help drive business to their door?’”

The answer is a uniquely catered website linked to the Chamber’s homepage and available via a Google search. Research of traffic to the Chamber’s main website showed a significant number of visitors from outside the Knoxville area. The information on Shop-Dine-Stay helps out-of-town web surfers find information about the area when planning trips. It is also useful to local residents looking for great dining, shopping or hotel experiences.

“In either case, whether visiting the area, looking to relocate, or just local consumers, people are going to want to shop and dine and stay here,” says Field.

After clicking the Shop-Dine-Stay link, visitors can navigate through alphabetical listings of retail establishments, restaurant destinations, and lodging accommodations. The site also includes a “My Profile” section that allows visitors the option of starting a personal profile of favorite business listings for quick access, the ability to add reviews to favorite businesses, and access to special online discounts and event notifications from participating businesses.

That latest figures supplied by site administrators reflect a growing number of visitors. The Chamber is encouraged by the increased momentum gained by the website with first-quarter statistics reflecting the site’s ability to serve the Knoxville business community and beyond. It is also encouraging that nearly 50 percent of the people arrived at Shop-Dine-Stay after first logging onto www.google.com. That proves that the Shop-Dine-Stay site is becoming a preferred site of Google and that it will continue to direct consumers to the site.

“That’s phenomenal,” says Field. “Folks are Googling something about Knoxville – potentially about where to shop, where to stay, or where to eat – and they’re ending up at either the Knoxville Chamber’s website or on the Shop-Dine-Stay website. It’s also very exciting we’re getting hits from outside the region, from places such as California, Virginia, and New York.”

What’s more, over 50 percent of site visitors didn’t simply look at the site, they actually searched through the site to try to find what they were looking for. Still, first and foremost, the Shop-Dine-Stay website was created for Chamber members and their business interests. Based on the numbers, there’s no doubt the site is driving business to area companies.

“When I see 970 hits to Carolina Pottery’s website, I can’t help but think that a good percentage of those people were interested in shopping there,” Field says.

“It’s amazing because there are a lot of Chamber members and Carolina Pottery is just a small, family-owned company without a big name,” Finney says. “It’s exciting to hear people who logged onto the Shop-Dine-Stay website navigated to our website more than any other. People are excited about us and we’re excited to be here.”

Chamber members in the retail, restaurant, and lodging categories receive the Shop-Dine-Stay business resource free of charge. Businesses that have questions about the website’s availability and use or would like more information can contact their account representative or Mark Field at 637-4550, or log onto www.shopdinestayknoxville.com.