Yahoo conducted a survey of small business online retailers to find out how they think they'll perform this upcoming holiday season compared to previous years.

"Surprisingly, based on the current economic landscape, the results show an optimistic outlook, with over 60 percent of the Yahoo! merchants surveyed expecting sales to be the same as most years or even stronger," a representative for Yahoo tells WebProNews.

"Only 25% expected sales to be weaker than most years (with the remaining 15% expecting sales to be weaker than most years but stronger than last year)," she adds. "After last year in which sales were plagued by the recession, this holiday season just may shape up to mark a rebound of sorts for small business online retailers."

Some other findings from the survey include: 

- The most optimistic industries are beauty and fragrances; clothing, accessories & shoes; and food – in all cases more than 40 percent think this will be a stronger year than most years.

- Several industries feel sales will be back to normal this season after being way down last year, including books and magazines, electronics, and music.

- These sectors tend to include lower cost gift options than some of the more pessimistic sectors such as computers & hardware (in which only 6% expect this year to be stronger than most years and 64% expect sales to be weaker than most years).

A recent survey from Google found that by last week, half of consumers had already begun holiday shopping. However, research from MerchantCircle found that only about 23% of merchants believe the worst of the recession is behind us.

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