So, you want to start an e-commerce business with no prior experience?

Introducing a new product through an e-commerce business can be difficult, particularly if you have little tolerance for risk and no prior experience.  There can be some marketing advantages as the world loves a useful new product, however, if no one has ever heard of your product, educating the public and finding clients can be challenging.  But, with a bit of creativity, hard work, and good fortune, success is always possible.

Mosquito Curtains Inc. (MCI) makes an alternative to a screen porch enclosure and sells its product via the internet.  Over the past 2 ½ seasons, they have built their business from nothing to nearly $400,000 in annual sales.  

The owners, Kurt & Elizabeth Jordan developed the idea out of necessity.  The Jordan’s had a lovely porch on the front of their house that they felt would be ruined by the look of permanent screening.  They wanted a removable alternative that was washable and did not require framing.  They designed their first prototype by sewing panels of fabric together and the results were better than expected.  Soon, friends and neighbors complimented the home-made enclosure.  They sat on the idea for a few years debating whether or not we could make a business of it.  Finally, they found a supplier that would custom loom high quality rolls of 12’ wide fabric sure to accommodate even the tallest of porches.  They tested various attachment methods and then applied for a patent.

Find a product that is marketable over the Internet

The product had certain characteristics making it ripe for an E-commerce business.  There is practically no competition.  Every porch is different, so curtains need to be custom-made.  Custom curtains won’t ever be stamped out in China or found at the large improvement stores that prefer pre-packaged products on their shelves.  The logistics of supply, manufacturing, and shipping were relatively easy.  And finally, this product can quickly access the English speaking cyber world without brick and mortar.  With upscale applications at a cost well below permanent screening, the internet appeals to both smart buyers and bargain shoppers.

MCI had an ambitious yet strict rule that the business be profitable in the first season.  We were very risk adverse and I wasn't yet ready to quit my day job, so we chose to use blood and sweat whenever we could cut cost.  Start up cost was minimal provided we were willing to devote many long after-work hours without a lick of automation.  In the lingo of e-commerce, we boot-strapped.  Every dollar would go into getting and keeping clients.   Money would only be spent on production when capacity exceeded 120%.

Relatively easy to set up E-commerce site

MCI studied various online store providers and chose Yahoo’s Merchant Solutions and Yahoo’s Sitebuilder to create their first online store.  Yahoo’s platform was relatively easy to use and when you have no idea what success you’ll have, it is a very inexpensive and reliable way to get started.  We applied for a merchant account, input our items, and built our store.  MCI opened in May of 2004 without any web design experience, yet managed to attract over 100 clients in their first season.

Focus on marketing and client satisfaction

Starting mid-season, MCI had to act fast and could only implement a pay-per-click campaign as a marketing strategy.  Besides, they needed more information before they could develop a broader strategy.  What they learned the first season surprised them. 

We live in Atlanta, a virtual mosquito haven between March and October; however, we sold more curtains north of Ohio than south.  We deduced that because the warmer season is shorter in the north, northerners place a premium on outdoor living.  Northern porches are not built with mosquitoes in mind and focus on character which is violated with permanent screening.  Later we learned that mosquito concentrations are heavier in the shorter season.  A removable, less expensive alternative seemed to appeal more to northerners as the south had a less of a swarming phenomenon, a more year round problem, and the architectural customs of more permanent solutions.

As a new product with no history, MCI felt it necessary to offer a satisfaction guaranty to their clients.  They continually asked for feedback and made necessary improvements.  The key is to focus on marketing and then satisfy your clients at all cost.   Guarantees not only gives clients confidence; but more importantly, it gives the merchant confidence during the sales process knowing that the client WILL be happy with their purchase.  Unless you are schizophrenic, clients smell confidence.
             
Production started in a 400 square ft. space above the garage.  Curtains as wide a 40ft. were cut by hand and sewn with a household machine.  MCI focused limited resources squarely on marketing and did whatever it took to deliver perfect product.  At times they would catch a flaw after nine hours of work and start over in complete frustration.  But each time they spoke to a client, it was with concrete confidence.

We spent a good bit of time with our clients and tried to instill a confidence that we were going to help them solve a problem.  We had a corny motto, “Make clients happy and then make them a quality curtain.” But we believed it and the clients knew it.  And even though the product would later improve, we had only one return in our first 100 orders.  Clients told their friends, wrote raving reviews, and sent us photos to add to our website.  We really felt they were rooting for us as we began seeing orders from their neighbors.

Second Season:  Leverage your information, focus, and improve

The first season provided just enough confidence to see the business as viable.  The owners quit their day jobs and devoted full time to the business.  The company semi-automated their process and drove production time down by an incredible factor of 8.

As for marketing, MCI identified four possibilities, home shows, mailings, media advertising, and building internet presence.  Unfortunately, media advertising was beyond their budget and distribution of some well targeted fliers made MCI skeptical on mailings. 

In September, MCI participated in a home show.  They knew it was a bad time of the season, but we wanted some home show experience and face-to-face feedback.  Interest seemed great, yet did not result in any sales.  They learned that season, signage, and display mattered.

Home show participation was time consuming and could be costly especially if they were to ever travel.  Perhaps home shows would later be fruitful; however, the near term focus had to be internet presence.  You need to recognize where you are in your evolution.  What makes sense in the long run may not be possible short term, especially when you are supporting a family.  Your imagination and the imagination of others will be your best friend.  

Absent a physical store, MCI needed a way for clients to better see the product and so they added a photo gallery.   The subtext message was, Look how beautiful, inexpensive, versatile, others bought one and must have thought enough to send these photos.  Say, that looks like my porch.

MCI revised their website template using Macromedia’s Dreamweaver that integrated with their Yahoo Store.  With feedback from clients, they realized they needed some help with web design and scoured for a player coach who would build pages while teaching them.  

We received countless phone calls from designers, content writers and search engine optimization (SEO) specialists, however in the end it seemed to always be, “Pay us and cross your fingers that something good happens.”  We fully understood that SEO was not a perfect science yet we didn’t have the budget to take a crap shoot and we didn’t want to lose control.  I’m sure many are very talented, yet without any SEO knowledge ourselves, we would never know.  God bless the internet, as we found a player-coach worth his weight in gold.

SEO would always be a priority; however, MCI still wanted to take small bets as they experimented with alternative marketing and asked advice from any soul on earth.  A college friend and successful owner of www.surprise.com suggested they try a press release.  It turned out to be a home run and even improved their SEO. 

Press releases can be the golden ticket

Press releases cost about $1,200 through a professional service such as business wire or PR newswire and are distributed nationally to specific “beat” editors at national newspapers, in this case, to the home & garden editors.  Newspapers only write about 10% of what they print, so, they are always looking for ready-to-print articles.  The trick is to make your release newsworthy and not just a self-promotion article.  If written correctly, a new product is often newsworthy.  In fact, this very article is a form of press release.  It is designed to be informative and interesting to the reader, more so than why the reader should buy Mosquito Curtains.  After the initial distribution costs, you pay nothing if the story is picked up.  It is almost free advertising!

In the second year, sales jumped six-fold with 20% attributed to the press release.  Yet unexpectedly, the page rank began to improve because newspapers occasionally post their printed stories on their high-ranking websites, sometimes with links.  We issued the release in March and throughout the year clients would call, “I saw you mentioned in the last Sunday’s home section and…”

Continue to innovate and leverage what works

In preparing for the 2006 season, MCI finally realized that frugality had its limits and hired production help and shifted more responsibilities to its web designer.  We certainly factored our time into product pricing, but as an owner, your profit is whatever’s left at the end of the day.  Since we were willing to work 12-16 hour days, our decision to hire outside help depended upon whether or not we could generate more profit elsewhere vs. the cost of labor to replace ourselves for a particular task.  This principal loosely applied to our pay-per-click program.  We stopped lamenting how much we spent on pay-per-clicks and increased our bids.  What is the profit and can your infrastructure handle it?  For the boot-strapper, measured growth reduces risk however you need to act rationally or you will be imprisoned and never build momentum. 

During the inactive winter season, MCI again worked to improve the website and added curtain tracking to their product line improving number and value of sales.  By now, they had amassed a large collection of photos from satisfied clients and worked on SEO and conversion.  We improved our page rankings but still had more to do.  Again, we completely revised the website, this time conforming to more conventionally accepted design principles.

MCI spent $15,000 in 2006 experimenting with print, radio and television advertising.  The overall campaign yielded only $22,000 in sales with some advertising yielding more than others.

Now we don’t know advertising from our tail feathers but when Palm Beach, FL gets hammered by a hurricane and contractors are booked for months, and you have a removable  product at 25% of the cost to traditional screening, you might think that 40 radio spots during drive time hours with the outstanding demographics of a particular radio station at only $70 a pop might be a reasonable risk.  While we made several sales in the area, not one client told us they had heard the ad.  Who’s to know why? Back to the press release.

The big fish

In October of 2005, MCI decided to leverage their success with their PR campaign and purchased a six month subscription to Burrelles media database so they could send custom press releases to newspaper, magazines and now broadcasters.  For certain high profile media, they sent samples as an attention grabber.  The release was a teaser of bullet points to lure even the most attention-challenged reader to a media page on their website www.mosquitocurtains.com/media.html where editors could view various stories and download high resolution photos directly.  And while the emphasis is on newsworthiness, many keyword rich content pages were created that were much more than content filler nonsense.

The results were enormous as their stories were picked up by the likes of Victorian Homes, Romantic Homes and Home & Garden.  The big fish, however, was a phone call received from HGTV’s program, “I Want That,” who had read the release and offered to pay for a film crew to spend all day filming for a 3 minute spot.  Not only did it air twice during prime time in March, it was repeated in June and September as well. 

Following each HGTV airing, sales skyrocketed and the phones rang off the hook.  We worked 16 hours 7 days to deliver, on the client’s doorstep as promised, in 2-4 business days with blood dripping from our eyeballs.   In 2006, sales tripled again to nearly $400,000.

2007 Strategies:  Reduce phone volume, SEO

Planning for 2007, MCI still plans to remain lean and have hired their web designer to create a Design Wizard that will enable clients to design their applications themselves directly from the site and reduce phone call volume.  The wizard will integrate with their Yahoo store for easy ordering and answer questions specific to the client’s particular application.  In addition, MCI will add “how to” video clips to their site on a video FAQs page to answer common phone questions received.

We are at the proverbial “hump”.  The business now pays our personal bills and our nose and mouth are safely above water.  By next year, we hope to earn a solid budget to really accelerate our momentum.

In addition, MCI will spend more time focusing on SEO to make the move from page 7 to page 1 for their important keywords with content and better quality links.  We want to improve the relevance of some partners and also want “deep links” to our other site pages.  We tried link sharing services and link emails with low percentage results from irrelevant sites.  We are learning that a well-targeted phone call attracts higher quality and dead-on relevance with surprising success.  In addition, some of the mosquito protection sites that were not competitors may make excellent referral allies.

Their PPC program will use unique titles and text for each keyword pointing to special landing pages to improve conversion.  Overture and Google Ad programs each have their strengths.  Overture has better keyword information while Google enables the user to rotate through various Title & Description combinations and runs click through analytics. By experimenting with ads, we could determine if user “hot buttons” were service, cost savings, fast delivery, guaranty, removability, ease of installation, etc.

MCI readily admits that they made some marketing mistakes and will likely make more as they continue to learn.  We could have grown faster and at times we should have invested more money into certain strategies particularly internet presence.  However, we are boot-strappers working lean with little tolerance for risk. Hindsight is always 20/20 but we firmly believe that, without experience, the trick is to experiment as cheaply as possible and then focus resources on what works.

MCI still feels that the press release cow still has some milk left in it.  With HGTV on their resume, the sale might be a bit easier for those who previously did not pick up the story.  Online stories will also be a big push this year, just like the one you are reading now.  We hope it was useful and informative. 

Kindest regards and good luck with your business,

Kurt Jordan (owner)