How BrickHouse Security Unlocks Secrets of Online Success-Pt. 1

Posted by Sanjay Arora, June 23rd, 2010 at 5:42 pm CDT
Posted in: Interviews, eCommerce
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BrickHouselogo-smallWe recently spoke with Ryan Urban, Customer Acquisition & Analytics Manager, BrickHouse Security. He’s been instrumental in making BrickHouse one of the fast growing Yahoo! Stores by selling lots of security and surveillance products to consumers, businesses, and government agencies such as the NYPD, LA County Sheriffs Department, and the FBI.

What’s your background?
I’ve been in and around ecommerce for a long time. I started in 1996 when I was in high school and got serious about selling Beanie Babies in volume. I ended up a Top 100 seller on eBay in 2002-2007. I went from eBay to consulting on other people’s sites, as well as jumping on the Amazon.com platform when it opened up. When I joined BrickHouse in September 2008, it was the first time that I had worked for someone other than myself.

Tell us about BrickHouse.
BrickHouse has been online on since 2005 and is an Internet Retailer Top 500 retailer for 2010. We have fulfillment warehouses in California, Indiana, and Tennessee. We’re headquartered in New York City. We offer 18,000 products, focusing on opportunities in micro security niches, such as GPS tracking, consumer sector surveillance, biometric locks, home security and child safety. We were born on SEO & Analytics, that is what makes us great. Interestingly, we have a lot of international customers who are looking for technology that isn’t readily available in their home countries.

How did you get started in analytics?
Someone has to figure out how to make the money. I’ve been in analytics for years.

Who is the typical BrickHouse customer?
There really isn’t a typical customer. I guess you could say that the typical BrickHouse Security customer wants to find out something or confirm a suspicion. The GPS tracking customer, for example, is looking to confirm the location of their children, their husband, or their vehicles. The customer interested in surveillance usually wants to confirm that things are OK. How is the nanny treating the children? They come to us for general security and surveillance technology.

What do you do to stand out to in the marketplace?
We try everything here. We have an actual phone number on our site. We have a huge tech support team with free lifetime support. Our product videos are stellar. We are everywhere in the online universe, including eBay & SkyMall.

Has the economy in the past couple of years changed the types of product that people buy?
It hasn’t. People still want to do what they want to, and have needs to fill. Finding a cheating spouse, for example, is a need for some people; as is making sure their children are safe. We’ve maintained strong conversion rates. In fact, conversion is higher now than it was in 2007. As far as pricing….we continually reevaluate it. We’re certainly not the lost cost leader because we sell the best products with professional service.

What do you think is the most interesting product you sell?
I think it is the Stealth iBot. It installs in seconds through a USB port, and records everything a person does on a computer. It is undetectable by most anti-spyware software, and stores up to 10,000 screenshots and virtually unlimited text. Think of it as a really sophisticated keylogger that is capable of revealing multiple email and Facebook accounts. It only costs $129. stealthibot-computer-spy
Thanks Ryan. If Sandra Bullock had slipped an iBot into Jesse James’ laptop she would probably have saved herself a lot of heartbreak and been able to take someone more deserving to the 2010 Academy Awards. Look for Part Two of our interview with Ryan in a couple of days.

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Ecommerce Site Search Invades the Windy City

Posted by Sanjay Arora, June 8th, 2010 at 7:54 am CDT
Posted in: Conferences, Site Search, eCommerce
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Got our bags packed and ready to fly out to Chicago for the annual gathering of the ecommece clans–the Internet Retailer conference. Once again at the McCormick Center, the 2010 show’s 400 plus exhibitors will welcome 6,000-7,000 attendees looking for ways to get ahead online as we come out of the recession of the past 2-3 years. We’ll be there to educate people about how site search is a critical component of this upward journey.

Internet Retailer – June 8-10, McCormick Place West, Chicago, IL (Booth #414)
I’ll be in the booth, along with Chris, Ruby and Christian. Stop by to receive a gift worth receiving. One hint: it is very Canadian. I guarantee that you won’t find it anywhere else on the expo floor. Prepare to be thrilled!

We’re also planning some major improvements to our website during the summer. One of the key changes will be the inclusion of much more video so we’re shooting on-site interviews with customers discussing their operations and Nextopia experience. So if you’re not camera-shy, and have 15 minutes to spare on Wednesday, RSVP to me as soon as you can.

Yahoo! Merchant Summit – June 11 – 8:00am – 5:30pm, McCormick Place West, Chicago, IL
Yahoo! is one of the platforms we frequently work with and this conference is one full day on how to supercharge your Yahoo! Stores business. We look forward to meeting up with many of our Yahoo! Stores-hosted customers, such as .

In addition to exhibiting at this one-day event, I’m also on the “Power of Design” panel, speaking on the importance of usability and design. We’re going to discuss a variety of issues, such as which design techniques are critical for merchants and how simple decisions like the placement of the search box can affect your site performance.

Hoping to see you in Chi-town at either of these events, or both.
Sanjay

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How Mountain Rose Herbs Maintains a Healthy Online Business: Case Study (Pt. Two)

Posted by Sanjay Arora, May 11th, 2010 at 1:26 pm CDT
Posted in: Interviews, Site Search, eCommerce
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MountainRoseHerbsLogo-4inch
Back for Part Two of our interview with Nate York, IT Manager for Mountain Rose Herbs. Nate talks to us about the technical issues, challenges and decisions he makes to keep the site running problem free. He also discusses how Mountain Rose Herbs uses Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to spark community participation in the company’s operations, and ecommerce site search to provide site visitors with information on the right product at the right time.

Let’s talk technology and the nut and bolts of operating your website. You’re on the Miva platform? What do you see as the pros and cons of it?
We were already established on the Miva platform (hosted with Cyberhost) before I arrived. It is secure and works 24/7. Even though we’re on an older version, it works well and I’ve had a good experience. Although some things are not as customizable, we’re not looking to upgrade MIVA. We’re developing a custom shopping cart, though, because we want some additional flexibility and customizable functionality. MountainRoseHerbs.com-Website
What about processing and payments?
We don’t do any card processing online. It is all offline and non-real-time. Part of the reason is security. Part of the reason is that we’re not a widget company that ships boxed inventoried products the same day. Rather than dealing with backorders, we find it better to process the order as it it is filled. The benefits of doing offline processing definitely outweigh the benefits of doing it online. We deal with fewer refunds and backorders.

How do you handle international customers? Any special fraud programs in place?
We do address verification, and direct contact and confirmation with international customers. Because each order is hand processed we can spot inaccuracies and potential fraud threats. Any orders over $300 require a special form we send after the order has been placed.

You have a corporate policy against shipping to Mexico, Russia and all of Africa. Why?
There is just too much fraud that takes places as a result of doing business with these countries to make it worthwhile.

Let’s talk customer acquisition. It looks like word of mouth is important? Event marketing, I assume is big, too.
Both are really important. We do word of mouth and event marketing across the country. We don’t host events ourselves. Instead, we get involved with green living events around the country, such as The Green Festival in San Francisco, Green America and numerous other conferences. I love trade shows and I’m trying to find an herbal IT conference that I can attend. Haven’t found one yet, unfortunately.

Let’s talk SEO.
We do all of our SEO in house. We use Google Analytics and Google Base for our shopping feeds. Also, we cover our keywords, meta-data, headers, alt tags etc… everything indexable to keep us in the search light.

We use Nextopia’s technology in a several different ways. We use the EcommISearch module for our site search and the new Out of Stock Alerts module which enables customers to add their email on a per-SKU basis. When we receive new product and update our inventory and shopping cart, the system automatically sends out an email. It is a great way to drive sales.

Selecting Nextopia for our site search has been one of the best decisions we made. I love Nextopia. I really do. I’ve really enjoyed working with the engineers tremendously. When I’ve needed applications developed, they’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty several times. Probably the main reason our relationship works is that they’re the right size of company for us. I know I can talk to Chris Bannister (my Nextopia account rep) and get stuff done. I work with other vendors and don’t get anywhere near the same level of personalized attention. With other vendors, I’m not just not as important. With Nextopia, I am really, really important.

The Right Amount of Cardamon at Just the Right Time

The Right Amount of Cardamon at Just the Right Time

Let’s talk Social Marketing. You’re tied into Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and You Tube. What does social marketing do for you?
Keeping in touch with the herbal community is critical for us. Social marketing gives us a face, so we’re not an anonymous wall. It allows customers to talk to us as well as interact. As we both participate in this discussion and observe it, we find out what our customers want.

Mountain Rose Herbs launched a user generated video contest in October 2009. Customers were asked to showcase their love of herbs, teas, spices, oils, and all things botanical.
The creator of the winning video received $1,000 and featured placement through the company’s social media accounts.
The idea came from internal discussions. The promotional video introducing the contest really captures who we are as a company. We wanted the video to encourage customer participation, we hired a local guy named Norm Scott, who did a terrific job. The entries were great. It is really fun to see how we touch people’s lives and play a part in their practice of an organic herbal lifestyle. (The delightful winning entry came from Catherine Wing and Bill Buckendorf who created a rapping rodent, Chives the Mouse).

Looked at your Twitter feed. Seems to be a combination of news tweets and coupon offers?
The key is having someone on your staff who has the time to keep on top of it. I’m definitely not that guy. Our marketing department handles it. Overall, Twitter helps keep our name present in any discussions relating to the herbal industry. From my perspective as a Mountain Rose employee and as a musician, I think it is a really good tool.

Where do you go to learn more about ecommerce innovations? What are some of the resources?
We work with a database programmer, Will Emmerson. He does a lot of our custom backend development for our ERP system. For example, he wrote the back end between Miva and our system. I work with him collaboratively. I’ll take an idea for a program or problem we need to solve. We’ll talk about options and possible solutions and then develop whatever we think is the best fix. Between Shawn, Will and I, we follow advances in technology and reason about how it could fit into our shop.

For a new retailer just starting out, what are a couple of things you would recommend they do?
First, I’d invest in IT and use it. Don’t go cheap and scrimp unnecessarily. Allocate whatever is necessary (time and/or money) to do a good job. It really can help you grow efficiently.

Finally, what is one thing that people probably don’t know about Mountain Rose Herbs?
Our corporate IT policy dictates that everything we buy is EPEAT Certified Gold. Everything we buy for our staff of 80 plus people, from desktops and monitors, to networking equipment, needs to meet this standard.

(Ed Note: EPEAT is a system that helps purchasers evaluate, compare and select electronic products based on their environmental attributes.)

Thanks Nate for your time. If you want to hear Nate’s other love, visit his band’s website. He manages it, of course.

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How Mountain Rose Herbs Maintains a Healthy Online Business: Case Study (Pt. 1)

Posted by Sanjay Arora, April 30th, 2010 at 2:11 pm CDT
Posted in: Interviews, Site Search, eCommerce
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MountainRoseHerbsLogo-4inch
Nextopia customer Mountain Rose Herbs has been helping its customers maintain year-round health since 1987. Today, we’re talking to company jack of all trades Nate York. Nate is not only the company’s IT Manager, overseeing the website, fulfillment and order processing capabilities, online scripting, IT security, and network management, he’s also a member of an eight member reggae dance band called The T Club that is a popular attraction throughout Oregon. Here is Part One of our interview.

Can you give us quick summary of your company, operations and markets.
Mountain Rose Herbs was founded in 1987. We’re located in Eugene, OR, and sell a wide range of natural botanical products, including organic herbs, spices, teas, and oils. We carry approximately 2,000 product SKUs. We have a head office in Eugene and operate several warehouses around the city. We do some manufacturing to produce our own finished products. Our business, however, is primary selling bulk ingredients to people who want to make their own herbal or aromatherapy products. You can order 4 oz or 200 lbs of nettles from us.

MountainRoseHerbs.com-Nettles

MountainRoseHerbs.com-Nettles

Our customer base is people into organic agriculture, herbs, aromatherapy, herbal and alternative healing, sustainable business practices, and botany. They take what they source from us and make their own products for retail and personal use.

Which products are your favorites?
I use a lot of the products we sell, especially the herbal teas. Once you start working around herbalists, you quickly learn that there are lots and lots of cool products and uses for them. For example, I’ve got a friend who burned himself while camping. He didn’t have health insurance so I spoke with some of the herbalists at work about a solution. They gave me a recipe for a salve which helped him completely recover without any scarring.

If you weren’t running the back end of an ecommerce outfit, what would you be doing?
Playing music or working in IT. I love music and I love IT!

Does your business have seasonality?
Getting involved with herbs and the products we sell is a lifestyle. We’re pretty steady all year long, although we do see some fourth quarter spikes from people who do bulk orders to make products for one-of-a-kind holiday sales and fairs, or who are planning to give them as Christmas gifts.

How has your customer base been affected by the economic downturn?
As I said, we sell to people who are enthusiastic about the herbal lifestyle. Buying from us forms part of their healthcare. When the economy is tough and health care increasingly expensive, people take more responsibility for their own health.

What do you do to stand out to in the marketplace?
We have an awesome marketing department that is very in tune with the movement. They focus on the fact that we are a company worth supporting, we value our employees, our loose culture and, of course, our high quality.

Thanks for your time, Nate. We’ll be back in a couple of days with part two.

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Five Questions with Stefan von Imhof, VP Games

Posted by Sanjay Arora, April 1st, 2010 at 9:15 am CDT
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With the most recent Christmas rush receding well into history, we caught up with retailer Stefan von Imhof of VP Games to learn about the really important stuff you need to become successful.

(Be sure to read the in-depth interview “Niche Retailing Online in a World of Wal-Marts: VPGames.com Case Study” we did with Stefan earlier this year. Part 1 and Part 2)  

What are the three most important metrics that you track?

1. Sales are the most important metric we monitor.

2. Non-paid or organic search traffic is next and something I check daily. There is no acquisition cost and I’ve found that organic traffic has a 1% higher conversion rate than standard paid search. You can’t ask for a better combination.

3.The other metric I closely track is conversion rate. Big box retailers talk of 5-7% conversion. I would guess that our conversion is .5-1% point higher than the average ecommerce site our size thanks to our merchandising efforts. (I think the best way for a site like ours to raise the conversion rate is to increase our product selection and organize it better. That’s where Nextopia’s site search helps us).

 

For a new retailer just starting out, what are three things you would recommend they do?

a. Avoid inventory risk

Watch your inventory because you can really get burned. It is really easy to stock up on goods and not realize the increasing risk you’re running. In future, you may not be able to sell them to cover your cost. Worse, you may not be able to sell them at all.

b. Watch your variable costs

You should know your fixed costs, those are simple. It is your variable costs that can kill you. For example, you might be spending $15,000 per month on advertising and be able to make money with a 1.8% conversion rate. But what happens if your conversion drops to 1.2%? You might start losing money. So you have to decide whether you can afford the same advertising budget. (This actually happened to us several years ago. We used to spend lots on eBay because the conversion was great. But the recession arrived and our conversion plunged. Because we were rigorously tracking our advertising spending, we knew very quickly we couldn’t sustain it due to the decrease in sales).

c. Partner with a good web guy

You want to have control over how your website looks, feels and operates. Assuming that you don’t know HTML yourself (and don’t plan to learn it), I think it is really critical to get someone on your team who can handle in-house development. In my experience, the last thing you want to do is rely on a third party. Instead, find someone who knows everything about the web or just learn it yourself. Even a basic understanding of Photoshop, HTML, Javascript, XML, or Python will go a long way in doing what you want to accomplish.

 

Benefitting from hindsight, what are some things that you did that you wished you hadn’t?

The number one thing I would have done is avoid eBay. And by avoid I mean use it sparingly. eBay used to be a big part of our operations, but we realized that we really didn’t have any control over the eBay selling environment. We started out very reliant on eBay. It was very easy to do and addictive. A friend of mine once said that selling on eBay is like a crack addiction – it’s easy to get hooked, to spend all your time addicted to the simplicity and easy cash flow that the platform can provide. But all of the things eBay can do (and does all too frequently like raise fees, and impose strict selling rules, etc.) are completely outside of your control. If you don’t have control, you can’t fix things when they go wrong. You don’t want your company’s futures dependent on the success of other companies. Use eBay and Amazon, but diversify. Instead of putting money into other companies’ pockets, focus on growing your own garden and control your own destiny.

 

What single thing that you’ve done has had the greatest impact on your business?

The greatest impact was investing in technology. Doing this represents a bigger up-front cost but it is well worth it. It has paid off big time as we’ve grown. By investing in internal web design and Python programming resources, we’re retained control and flexibility to do what we want. For example, we produce pretty complex shopping comparison shopping feeds. Without the internal resources to create them, I’m not sure we would have been able to afford to outsource its development.

 

The proverbial magic wand…If you could wave one and invent some technology that would make your days easier, what would it do?

There are so many things to be done. What I’d like is have is a robot that could analyze our site, aggregate terabytes of customer behavior data and figure out the best ways to increase conversion and turn as many shoppers into customers as possible. Also, if the robot could make a killer breakfast each morning, that would be pretty cool, as well.

 

My Favorite Thing: what I most enjoy about working in my business

Having your own business, owning full control of your working life is the truest sense of freedom in the world. There aren’t many things that you can do where you have a more acute sense of freedom than you do as an entrepreneur…starting something from nothing. I love being able to travel on my own accord and I love the feeling of being in control of my present and future. Even on the bad days, when things aren’t going well, I enjoy working for myself because in the end, I love solving problems and finding solutions.

 


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Internet Retailer Reports ToolFetch Sales Jump 20% After Implementing Nextopia

Posted by Sanjay Arora, March 24th, 2010 at 10:51 am CDT
Posted in: Site Search, Uncategorized, eCommerce
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ToolFetch.com-LogoThanks to Internet Retailer for highlighting ToolFetch’s experience (“Toolfetch customers retrieve products faster with a new site search system“) with our ecommerce site search technology.

An Internet Retailer Top 500 retailer, ToolFetch replaced its Google Mini site search engine earlier this year with Nextopia’s eComm|Search and the results have been anything but…mini. ToolFetch CEO and co-founder Andrew Brown reports that since integrating our technology, his company’s sales have jumped approximately 20%. Customers are returning to the site more often and purchasing a broader range of products.

The article does a great job of detailing how eComm|Search helps site visitors find what they need, and why it delivers such a huge ROI to online retailers. Worth reading, of course!

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Five Questions with Maria Sutorik, Vice President, Bronner’s

Posted by Sanjay Arora, March 10th, 2010 at 9:30 am CST
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Maria Sutorik, Vice President, Bronner’s, answers five of the toughest questions we could think of asking her. If you’d like to learn more about how Bronner’s, the World’s Largest Christmas Store thrives online, read our extensive interview with Maria. (Part 1 and Part 2)

1. What are the three most important metrics that you track?

I think the most important are:
  • Site traffic
  • Conversions
  • Sales

2. For a new retailer just starting out, what are three things you would recommend they do?

I recommend that a new retailer spend a lot of time learning. Use industry resources like the National Retailer Federation and Shop.org. Read Internet Retailer magazine and attend the conference. Education is critical. Next, spend a lot of time talking and listening to others as part of an on-going market survey process. Talk to both external and internal audiences. Finally, surround yourself with reliable partners and experts. The bottom line is that you can’t be an expert in everything. You simply won’t be able to find the time to learn about everything that will ultimately impact your business. The solution is to find individuals and firms that know their respective markets. Find a good banker, a reliable search agency, a web developer you can trust.

3. Benefitting from hindsight, what are some things that you did that you wished you hadn’t?

I think we went too long trying to manage our own email list. We thought we could continue to handle it ourselves, even as it grew ever bigger. Not only did we slow our server performance and cause headaches for everyone who was using our network, but the system fell far short of the reporting and metrics we needed to determine whether we were actually doing the right things. Now, we use a third-party email service provider and life (and reporting) is much better. We do all our creative in house but we really benefit from better campaigns.

4. What single thing that you’ve done has had the greatest impact on your business?

I would say it goes all the way back to my Dad listening to his customers. We wouldn’t even have a Christmas business if he hadn’t talked to some merchants who were in Frankenmuth in 1951 searching for Christmas decorations for their city lampposts. To meet their needs, he designed and produced some Christmas panels. Over the next couple of years, he gradually built up a sideline, producing and installing decorations and displays for communities, shopping centers and stores. The first retail store opened in 1954 because the wives of the merchants who came to my Dad’s small wholesale shop started asking about how they could find items for their own homes. That is how the retail sales got started. By 1977, our retail operations had grown to the point that my Dad purchased 45 acres on the edge of town. Our current store covers an area equal to five and a half football fields. We’re huge believers in the Golden Rule: we treat customers as we would want to be treated. We read all comment cards and we take action whenever necessary.

5. The proverbial magic wand…If you could wave one and invent some technology that would make your days easier, what would it do?

I would love integration, one system that would help me avoid having to look in multiple places for information and then try to piece everything together. This wonderful system would integrate website analytics, sales data, ROI performance and shopping feeds so I could
staff properly and really maximize efficiency.

Thanks Maria for your time. Good luck finding an integration wand.

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Hockey Gold Medal Means Merchandising Opportunity for IceJerseys.com

Posted by Sanjay Arora, March 8th, 2010 at 12:21 pm CST
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icejerseyslogo2

While we’re proud to be a Toronto-based company, this week we’re a little prouder than usual due to that recent nail biter in Vancouver. More than a few Nextopians arrived at our office the next day with voices raspy from having exhorted our national heroes 2,500 miles away as they battled for the men’s Olympic ice hockey gold medal. The result also generated more than a few congratulatory emails from Nextopia customers, some of whom were fans of Team USA. Regardless of which team you were pulling for, even those who don’t like hockey (I think Canada has fewer than 100 people who’d fit this description) would have to admit that it was an incredible game. Let’s hope that the National Hockey League agrees to contribute its players to the 2014 Games in Russia.

(Thumbs-up, too, for the hockey-playing Canadian women who went undefeated and earned their own medals in that same gilded shade).

What does this have to do with our usual posts about ecommerce excellence? Gold medals beget merchandizing opportunities. And ice hockey gold medal victories by Team Canada mean lots of merchandizing opportunities for Nextopia customer IceJerseys.com, which is headquartered in Montreal.

We fired off a few questions to Anthony Wolfe, the company’s VP of of Ecommerce. Anthony didn’t have much time, given that Olympic gold medals in Canada’s favorite sport aren’t as common as we’d like.

First, general comments on the Olympic Hockey tournament?

I think the tournament was great all around. Fans were treated to seeing the best players in the world competing for their country with everything on the line – it really doesn’t get much better than that!

Did you see a jump in sales (and search queries) coincide with the Olympics? If so, when did sales start to go up?

We started to sell Olympic merchandise at the beginning of Q4 2009, and sales gained momentum throughout the holiday shopping season. In fact, we’ve carried jerseys and apparel for most participating countries from the beginning and sold out of a lot by Christmas. Sales never really dropped off much after Christmas, picking up significantly as the Olympics approached. As a result, a huge chunk of our search queries have been focussed on Olympic teams and merchandise.

How much of an effect will Canada’s gold medal have on your sales this year?

The gold medal has resulted in a major sales boost over the past week, and we anticipate it will linger for a few more weeks.

What is the top selling “let’s celebrate the gold medal” item?

Right now we have two champs items that have been very hot:

In addition, the two official Team Canada jerseys continue to sell at an incredible clip:

Canadian pride aside, what was your favorite jersey (mens or womens) among teams in the Olympics?

Honestly, I think there were a number of really nice jerseys in addition to Canada’s. The USA alternate jersey, Germany, Norway, Finland and Russia were among my favourites. I especially liked how many of this year’s Olympic jerseys worked a sublimated ‘patriotic’ pattern into the jersey fabric – or in Canada’s case, the crest. Very subtle, but nice attention to detail.

Lastly, what are some of the countries from which people have bought Canada jerseys?

In addition to Canada and the USA, we have shipped Canadian jerseys to pretty much everywhere around the world, including: Australia, Bermuda, France, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Thailand and the United Kingdom.

A hockey jersey and Bermuda shorts must certainly be a strange sight on the island. Anyway, with the Closing Ceremonies fading into history, we’d like to thank Anthony for taking the time to talk to us. We’d love to talk to him more later in the year about his site operations, as well as the mystery why Slapshot remains so popular.

In the meantime, enjoy fulfilling those orders.

- Team Nextopia (who are big fans of Team Canada)

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Three Questions with Ken Kikkawa, founder of eHobbies.com

Posted by Sanjay Arora, January 29th, 2010 at 11:58 am CST
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As a follow-up to our two-part interview with Ken Kikkawa, president of eHobbies.com, we gave him three really tough and provocative questions that only an experienced entrepreneur, steeled in the fiery cauldrons of online retailing, could answer. He answered them almost too easily:

How do you define merchandising in an online environment?

Presenting products to customers in a way that would entice them to buy.
What are the three most important metrics that you track?

A. Overall company sales.

B. Site visitors.

C. Site conversions (percentage of site visitors to purchasers).

For a new retailer starting out, what are three things you would recommend they do?

A. Don’t over-invest in inventory.

B. Develop a business plan and stick to it.

C. Focus on the customer and customer service.

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Niche Retailing Online in a World of Wal-Marts: VPGames.com Case Study (pt.2)

Posted by Sanjay Arora, January 11th, 2010 at 9:35 am CST
Posted in: Interviews, Uncategorized, eCommerce
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VP Games Logo

Here is the second half of our two-part interview with Stefan Von Imhof, a business graduate of the University of Massachusetts (and proud Minuteman) who turned his love of gaming into a thriving online retailing operation. He discusses his most important vendors, why Black Hat SEO isn’t worth it, and the real value of Twitter (hint: it’s not notifying the world that you had toast for breakfast).

Let’s talk about technology and the nut and bolts of operating a site? Who are you hosting with and what are some of the vendors you use?

We host with a company called Channel Advisor. We started working with Channel Advisor in the early days back when we used to sell a lot more on eBay and Amazon. If you are a multichannel retailer (selling on eBay and Amazon as well as online from your own site) you need something to tie everything together. The Channel Advisor platform allows us to sell through multiple channels under one “dashboard.”

The second big vendor we use is Shipworks, which provides our shipping software and is closely integrated with Channel Advisor. When you really look at our business, we’re not a video game company, we’re a shipping company. Shipping packages is what we do. It’s certainly the most important thing we do. We ship hundreds of packages every day and getting stuff out the door correctly is everything. Shipworks is both inexpensive and very customizable. It handles emailing customers, email notification (such as “Your Order as Shipped” emails), out of stock notifications, and a bunch of other stuff.

A third company we rely on is Nextopia. With 9,000 SKUs, it can be very difficult to organize all of the info. One of the things that bugs people with Google searches is that you can type in “Wii controller” and not easily find any Wii controllers. Instead, you might find Wii controller jackets, skins, holders, and everything else related to Wii controllers. That’s kind of what I wanted to avoid on our site. On a regular day, we’ll have 3500-8000 search queries on our site. Nextopia has been a great tool to deliver relevant answers to about 99.5% of our searchers. The other half percent who can’t find what they want – we find out why and tweak the engine. It’s a constant improvement process and Nextopia has been really important to what we do. They have been a great partner in our growth. They make a great product, provide great support. and they’re super friendly. What more can you ask for?

 

VP-Games-Site-Search-2

Have you been tempted by any SEO black hat opportunities?

Absolutely. SEO is such a tricky game. There is no question that blackhat SEO works; if it didn’t, nobody would do it. But the last thing you want to do is break the rules because 1. you can get caught, and 2. the benefit will only last a short time before Google finds out what you are doing, tweaks the algorithm, and it’s all over. My advice to retailers considering blackhat techniques is not to do it: you run the risk of getting blacklisted from search results, and that is death for a website.

With gaming inherently linked with people on the leading edge of Web technology and behavior, how are you finding the ROI of involving yourself in social media?

As far as Twitter, we used to use it far more when it first became popular, primarily with sales offers and coupons. My personal opinion (as someone who has done social media consulting for other companies) is that I honestly don’t think people are terribly involved with Twitter. Twitter boasts a really huge user base, but I’m just not sure how many of them are actively listening to each other, and how much is just “noise”. The one area where we’ve found that having a Twitter presence excels is in customer service. It is really the best way to reach a retailer like us because it cuts through the email and email filter walls. I tell people all the time – if you are having trouble reaching a company, try Twittering them or write on their Facebook wall – it’s probably the quickest way to get a response.

Do you see social media as an opportunity to blow out old stock or juice monthly sales?

Yeah, absolutely. While I think Twitter is maybe overrated, all social media is still important. I personally think a lot of small businesses sell Facebook short. Facebook is probably the most important social media presence a company can have, because it offers much more personal communication. With Twitter, anybody and their brother can show up in your Twitter stream. But when a company shows up in your Facebook news feed, it is a much more personal experience. We are active on Facebook because we want to show people that we’re both open and responsive to customer complaints. That’s really the key – connecting with customers on a personal level.

Final question, if you weren’t running an ecommerce store, what would you be doing?

I don’t know – to tell you the truth I haven’t really thought about that. Probably working in the renewable energy industry, maybe solar, which is of course going to be huge someday. There are a lot of companies doing a lot of amazing things with solar energy around here. My college background is business so I’d probably looking for opportunities in green tech/renewable energy. Either that or city planning. Santa Barbara is an amazing place, and it takes a lot of urban planning to keep it that way.

Thanks for taking the time to speak with us Stefan. Good luck finding the time to actually eat some breakfast; filling orders for Modern Warfare 2 and I’m sure DJ Hero is probably keeping you very busy.

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