(Ian Ritter is national online editor for GlobeSt.com/RETAIL.)

NEW YORK CITY-Traditional retailers will need to boost their online advertising presence to keep up with Internet-only players that are gaining sales momentum, said speakers on a panel yesterday at SG Cowen's Consumer Conference here at the Westin New York at Times Square. Retailers who now spend single-digit percentages of their advertising budgets on the Internet may have to increase that number to around 30%, says Rich LeFurgy, principal at San Francisco-based consulting firm Archer Advisors.

"We're in the middle of a massive transformation." However, television will continue to play an important role in marketing and most advertising agencies still focus on that medium, LeFurgy concedes.

One thing that retail executives can do is familiarize themselves with search-engine advertising that brings up a company's name after a consumer enters a product they are looking for on a site such as Google, said Michael Jones, chief operating officer of North Carolina-based consulting firm Channel Advisors. It's important for retailers to catch on to this trend now, or "you will have smaller players that could be biting at your heels faster than you know."