E-Business Profiles: Profiles 11-20
As I wrote these profiles of e-commerce entrepreneurs, I was amazed at the variety of approaches to running a business. Freed from some of the constraints of traditional retailing – like renting a storefront – these business owners indulge in a good deal more experimentation.
~ James Maguire
Simplify Shopping, Speed Fulfillment
[Online retailer uses rapid order fulfillment to attract customers.]
Shipping supplies aren't sexy, as Gary Neubert is the first to admit. So when Neubert launched GatorPack, which sells items like packing peanuts and wrapping tape, he knew he needed something to give the store an edge...
Taming Tons of SKUs in Your Online Store
[Internet trophy store uses the COREsense e-commerce platform to manage order flow and inventory management.]
With a trophy for every occasion, Tropies2Go sells nearly 1500 different SKUs -- from soccer to basketball awards, men's and women's prizes, gold and silver medals, even a Women's Horseshoe trophy...
Looking Out for the Little Guys
[A virtual Dollar Store sells wholesale to dollar stores across the country.]
Visit DollarDays.com and you'll see one of the Internet's most unlikely selections of merchandise. Leather jackets sit next to Christmas decorations. Toothbrushes and shampoo are juxtaposed to Angelina Jolie calendars, while furniture repair tools and electric guitar shaped telephones are side by side with women's hosiery...
Trek's Site Becomes Tour de Force
[The famed bike maker uses the MarketLive e-commerce platform to help with its promotional efforts.]
When the Trek Bikes Web site switched its software platform, it made an unusual change. The well-known seller of bikes and related gear moved from a custom-built platform — usually considered the most desirable solution — to a platform made by MarketLive...
Home-Grown Firm Climbs Corporate Ladder
[An e-tailer learns how to compete in the crowded online gift-basket market.]
Yes, GiftTree sells gifts online, but no, its goal is not to be an Internet gift shop. Instead, explains company CEO Craig Bowen, the site is a gift services company. The difference may be slight to an outsider, but it makes all the difference in the site's e-commerce strategy...
Getting Involved with Threadless.com
[A small time t-shirt seller leverages the Internet for serious profit.]
Threadless.com isn't just another online t-shirt vendor. While the site does sell t-shirts -- bringing in about $320,000 last year -- it uses a sales technique that many Web merchants could benefit from...
Kidrobot Goes Click-to-Brick
[An Internet store opens brick and mortar locations after its success in Internet-only retailing.]
Kidrobot breaks the unwritten rule about e-commerce sites and real-world stores. When a business has both, you can safely guess it opened the retail stores first. With all that inventory in the backroom, it's easy to put up a site and start peddling.
Look Inward for Search Success
[A gift referral site uses a comparison shopping platform to boost sales.]
Virtually every day, Darrell Benatar thinks about attracting shoppers using search engines. As president of Surprise.com , Benatar not only uses search engines to draw traffic but his site is itself a search engine...
Strategies in Building Shopper Trust
[Building customer trust is the key to success for this jewelry e-tailer.]
Every online merchant faces a huge challenge in building customer trust. That's especially true when it comes to e-tailers who specialize in high-priced items. But e-weddingbands.com has developed a way to cope -- and succeed, in spite of the tremendous hurdles it had before it...
Online Software Selling Gets an Overhaul
[After major growth, an online store faces the need to revamp its site.]
Software games maker Freeverse Software is in the midst of a site revamp. Their situation had been all too common among small e-tailers: "We've been so busy developing titles and all our other things that we've neglected our Web site," says Colin Lynch Smith, vice president of New York-based Freeverse...
