In order to be successful this holiday shopping season, small web retailers needed to be unique in their approach to merchandising, says Danielle Savin, vice president of multichannel retail and marketing at e-commerce technology consultants FitForCommerce. “The niche merchants that drove the most sales over the holidays were the ones that really tried to mix commerce and content,” she says. “The big winners in sales showed online shoppers they had the prices, inventory and product knowledge that made them better to shop than the bigger brands.”