Every business (online or off needs) to do a good job of branding if they want to be successful and well known.  I have been doing Internet businesses since 1999 and have seen the power of "user/client recommendations" and when people talk about something they like. 

Something amazing is going on in the Internet (Web 2.0) world lately with social networks/communities and groups.  These are probably the most powerful sources of traffic that I have seen in quite some time.  In the old days you would get your site ready for search engines (or PPC search engines) to get you all of the traffic, but that is no longer the case.  Don't miss understand what I am saying, search engine traffic is still valuable and will help you succeed, but if that is your only focus then you are missing out on a huge part of the traffic sources. 

Take a social community like MySpace for example where you can build a friend list of hundreds of thousands in a matter of months.  I have been building up eCommerce sites for years and only have "thousands" of emails (or "friends").  So taking advantage of the communities that people are using, and using it to brand your business will get you more business, more traffic and more money.

If you have a home base business website then you can also make videos talking about what you do, in turn, helping people feel more comfortable with you and then upload them to YouTube or Google Video, and take advantage of these sites that are showing the world more videos then MTV or any of the other music channels combined.  

There is power in these communities, and any Internet business retailer that is not trying to figure out some way to take advantage of them will just eventually go away. 

In conclusion, you do not want that to happen to you or your business so make sure that you are doing everything you can to embrace the changes going on ever so rapidly in this online industry!