E-commerce Case Studies
With several thousand live sites, Actinic Ecommerce software is the backbone to many successful businesses. The following case study examples highlight the challenges customers have faced and the success they have achieved with the help of Actinic solutions. To see more customer example sites.
Comic Domain
As avid collectors of sci-fi comics, Dave Cresswell and his brother realised that there was money to be made out of the hobby. Thus Comic Domain was born in January 2000 in two home offices. Average sales are now over £2500 per month. Along the way Dave learnt a few lessons.
Up, Up and Away
Have you ever thought about making money from your hobby? Well Dave Cresswell and his brother, Steve actually turned their dream into reality in 2000 and have now made www.ComicDomain.co.uk second only to Forbidden Planet as the most popular online comic store. Their web site sells over 10,000 comics, limited editions and all sorts of other related products for the sci-fi and sci-fantasy enthusiast. The annual turnover has gone from a couple of thousand to over £50,000 combining online and offline sales, yet it is still an adjunct to their day jobs.
The story began in January 2000 when they set up Comic Domain running out of two home offices. However, it almost fell at the first hurdle.
Server versus desktop
Dave and Steve opted for a server-based ecommerce solution that proved expensive AND ineffective. Dave explains,
“The set-up was pricey, plus there was a monthly charge of £70, yet we could only sell up to twenty items. Worse, the host also took something like 4% of each sale and this was in addition to giving another percentage to WorldPay. To cap it all, their ‘stall’ was buried deep on the site where no-one could find it.
“After several months of no sales what-so-ever, and shelling out a lot of our own money we decided to give it up and concentrate on the collectors' conventions where most of our business was already coming from.”
This could have been the end of ecommerce for Comic Domain, but fortunately Dave found another way of selling online that allowed him to run the shop from his PC and thus retain control over the catalogue and customer data, as well as dramatically lowering his costs. With an injection of less than £1000, a new site went live in December 2000 based on Actinic's shop-in-a-box software. Dave says,
“Actinic is perfect for us as a small business and by upgrading to each new version we still find it covers our needs, even though these are now more sophisticated. Everything is maintained on my PC then uploaded to the site in a couple of minutes. Stock level checks are easy to manage and postage is automatically handled for each country, along with VAT.”
“In our first year we were achieving a monthly average of £160 in online sales, but now we are averaging just over £4,500 a month. When you consider that our comic books are priced as low as £2 a copy you realise that we are moving a lot of product – as many as 40-50 orders a day."
Despite sometimes heavy delivery costs, orders are shipped all over the world, even back to the US where the stock originated from.
Marketing needn't cost a packet
The brothers have a simple approach to marketing. Firstly flyers are distributed round the weekend sci-fi conventions they exhibit at across the country. Still an important element of the strategy, exhibiting at these live events also allows the company to stay in touch with the market's fads and trends, check out competitors as well as meet and greet customers and suppliers. Dave comments,
"From a table top, we now have an incredible 18ft long by 7ft tall stand, showcasing a representative range of the stock that we hold.”
A second tack is advertising. Initially this was just in sci-fi magazines, but Dave’s also experimenting with cinema advertising and finds this is very cost effective.
“Especially as our slots can be linked to relevant films that appeal to our visitors and where we have associated merchandise featured in the shop. This has been a great tie-in for us. It has introduced a whole new generation to super heroes and given us a new customer base, all longing to continue the stories of their favourite on-screen heroes. And the trend isn’t over yet as we look to the films coming over the next few years.”
Online marketing makes use of the ecommerce software’s inbuilt search engine optimised design so Comic Domain is consistently in the top organic listings on Google, Yahoo, etc. and they don’t have to spend a fortune on pay per click. This approach, along with word of mouth, means they are welcoming over 40,000 unique visitors a month, many coming from North America, Europe and Australia as well as all over the UK.
Seasonal fluctuations are not a big issue for the business, but there has always been a low spot in July. However, with the latest version of the Actinic software there is a marketing feature that has allowed them to turn this around: offering regular customers £10 off for £25 or more spent. The email promotion campaign resulted in an additional 150 sales worth £4500 -- summer slumps are no more!
Finally on the marketing front, encouraging a community spirit amongst customers and fans goes beyond the conventions to the web site where Dave and Steve introduced a message board section.
“We use it to display all our news, sneak peaks plus it's a very good way to promote all the upcoming new titles and events. We even use it to help promote new writers and artists allowing people to leave feedback, which has been a great way to gauge the fans' interests." It’s a simple example of how to add ‘stickiness’ to a site that others could benefit from."
What now?
The plan is to continue putting the profits back into the business while the owners carry on with their day jobs. They have expanded by taking on part-time packers (mostly mothers who can fit the work round their children’s timetables) there are also plans to introduce a loyalty scheme for both online and offline buyers. This gives a 5-10% discount meaning even bigger savings to the customers while expanding on the customer base.
Dave is also considering an option of expanding into the 'real world' by opening up a shop in a high street somewhere.
”At the moment we’re looking into all the hidden costs and seeing if it’s a feasible step for us to take without tripping ourselves up.”
Over the past couple of years the duo have reviewed and streamlined the business where possible. One of the biggest changes has been a huge reduction in postage costs. Dave explains,
“We’re now one of the cheapest and we don’t skimp on the packaging either -- each comic is individually bagged and boarded for extra protection. If we could afford to introduce free P&P we’d do that as well,”
“Our business has continued to expand and develop and many of our customers have thanked us for a very good service. We’re delighted we’ve made it this far and hope that we continue to grow…we’ll just have to see what’s in store for us next!”