"While
looking to start a business with low operating overhead, Dave Nyswonger of Portland
TN found a solution in e-commerce.
In July 2002 Dave was distributing satellites, cell phones, pagers, etc., through
a brick and mortar store in Tennessee. However, he was looking for another business
that was not as labor intensive as his current company. So when he received
an invitation to a StoresOnline preview presenting Internet marketing strategies,
he went.
After attending the preview and the following all-day workshop, Dave was impressed
with the prospect of starting an Internet retail store.
It "looked like a good opportunity with the Internet growing," Dave says. "I
didn't know what I was going to sell when in went into the seminar, [but] I
got to thinking about it and I said, I could sell [Leupold] scopes." So, Dave
went ahead and bought six Storefronts and began working immediately.
"One of the key things I learned at the seminar [is] misspelled words. I learned
a lot from that technique. Having a German last name misspelled all of my life,
I wondered how a country boy would spell 'Leupold.' I [used] the reverse search
tool, and it turned out 35 percent of the time [Leupold] is misspelled."
Dave quickly bought the misspelled domain name, www.LeopoldScopes.com
and has ranked numbers1 and 2 in Google for the past year and a half.
The sales revenue from his first site, www.LeopoldScopes.com,
has ranged from a trickle to USD $20,000 per month. Through the holidays, revenues
are around $6,000-7,000 per month, and lately his spring sales have hovered
around this same level.
"Based on the numbers I have so far, I'm looking at going through the next
couple of months at $15,000-20,000," Dave says
Dave originally thought his scopes would be sold primarily to average hunters,
yet professionals and even the U.S. military have placed orders through his
site. "You get in this thinking you're doing something; I was just thinking
of hunting, and then found out there's a bigger and broader picture about the
product that I sell."
His new and second site, Pfluegerreel.com,
is devoted to a line of fishing reels.
"Using the techniques I learned at the seminars helped get my site from Friday
[the day it went live] to a Tuesday with a hit," Dave says.
Getting both sites up and running had its challenges for Dave.
"I bit off more than I could chew on the first site, but after a while [I got]
more comfortable with what [I was] doing, with the product, and [building the
site] became a lot quicker."
The printable tutorials also helped Dave.
I'd "pick it up, go back, go forth, highlight it, read it a couple of times,
and then it got real easy," he says. "The first thing you want to do is print
out the tutorials and then it won't seem so overwhelming."
Dave also recalls how he dealt with his frustrations.
"It's a new learning experience. I put my grandfather's picture up in front
of my computer and every time I'd get frustrated, I'd look up at my granddad
with a cowboy hat and say 'Okay, I know I can get on this horse and ride it.'
So I get back on it and ride it again until I figure it out."
He also received help from the StoresOnline Customer Support team, a service
he describes favorably.
"You can get right through and talk to the people. You may have to wait on
hold for a minute, but not near as long as you do with a lot of other companies.
You get there and they can answer your question."
As for financing his six storefronts, Dave quickly paid them off. Being the
owner of a brick and mortar store, Dave realizes it is hard to pay off the initial
capital required to start a new business.
"There aren't many businesses you can pay off in a five year period, much less
a two year period."
Visit Dave's two sites at http://www.leopoldscopes.com,
and http://www.pfluegerreel.com
*Testimonial results are not typical and your individual results will vary. Your success depends on having the right price, product, and marketing efforts.