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actinic case study
surf wax
Surfing Online Makes a Profit
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Jo Morecroft is an extreme sport enthusiast who wanted to share her passion for her hobby with the world. Luckily she's also a web designer (you can check out some of her designs at www.pinbrook.net) so it didn't take her too long to create Surf-Wax.co.uk, as she explains: "Surf-Wax was just a hobby for me and a way to show the world the photographs of extreme sports and the beaches (mainly around the south west) that I was taking at the time."
Back in 2002 when Jo set up the site she had no ecommerce plans. Fast forward a year and half and Surf-Wax is a profitable online business. What's more, Jo hasn't had to take on any extra staff or invest in any expensive hardware or software to get the store up and running.
Traffic to the site began to build slowly as Jo expanded the content to go with her sport and coastal images. Before too long she had nigh on 1,000 visitors a day and that's when she decided Surf-Wax had potential as a revenue generator or, at the very least, could pay for itself.
"I was also developing sites for clients as part of the design side of Pinbrook.net. I wanted to create a site that was based on everything I'd learnt about designing a successful ecommerce site - good design, good search engine optimisation, good navigation," explains Jo, "I wanted to prove to myself (and my clients) that I really know what I'm talking about." Building a successful ecommerce site is difficult enough even if you have an existing client base or brand name. Building a site and making it profitable when no-one has ever heard of you adds a bit more to the challenge.
The ecommerce-enabled Surf-Wax went live in May 2003 selling extreme sports videos and DVDs, surf wear and equipment. Jo uses Actinic Catalog to run the site and did all the design work herself.
The site is a great example of how you can set up a viable online business without investing thousands of pounds. Instead of deciding to get in lots of stock and invest in storage space and extra staff to process orders the Surf-Wax site simply acts as a portal for a variety of suppliers. Orders come through to the site and they're forwarded to the appropriate vendors who ship the goods. Jo takes around a 20 per cent commission on all sales. The site now covers an impressive range of products with prices ranging from £5 up to £300.
Acting as a middleman for these suppliers could prove troublesome, after all customers will come to Jo with their delivery problems. But she's found careful management cuts down on the complaints as she explains, "All emails from customers come directly to Surf-Wax and are forwarded to the supplier. We have a contract with each one where it states they are responsible for delivery and any subsequent losses, hence everything sent out has to be signed for."
One reason Jo choose Actinic was her experience of it as being search engine friendly. Search engines have played a big part in driving traffic to Surf-Wax, the site is now getting an impressive 30,000 unique visitors per month and that figure is steadily increasing. "We rely on search engine marketing only," admits Jo, "but generally I tend to advise clients to use conventional offline marketing as well – get your web address everywhere you can, on letterheads, business cards, compliment slips, adverts and so on. We’ve even got bumper stickers on our car."
Surf-Wax has paid very little money out to paid-for search engine listings and relies solely on natural listings concentrating on the big three: Google, MSN and Yahoo. (Surf-Wax is already listed on Yahoo! from its non-commercial days). “It's very important to build the search engine optimisation into the site while it's being developed. Too many people still think optimisation is just about meta tags. We also take great care over our linking strategy. We only link to relevant sites and only if those sites are quality sites." There are plans to build a sports directory within the site and collecting links is the first step in that direction.
Jo estimates that Surf-Wax cost just £1,000 to set up, and the site now pulls in around 250-300 orders per month with an average order size of £35. Based on Jo's commission, Surf-Wax typically generates a monthly revenue of £1,200 – which can't be bad. Not surprisingly the site paid for itself within just six months and is now profitable.
So what's the secret of Jo's success? Of course she's a web designer so she's got a head start on most of us, but Surf-Wax is also a supremely 'sticky' site. The content is useful (e.g. extreme sport location reviews, beginners' guides, activity information, schools, even local weather), updated regularly and there's a strong sense of community -- all of which keeps customers coming back. "Sticky content is often overlooked," explains Jo. "It's always a good idea to create extra web pages with useful information, whether it be links to other related sites or competitions, special offers, case studies and so on."
The future looks good for Surf-Wax -- Jo plans to let the site virtually run itself, acting as a middleman for orders. She is constantly adding new products to the site but is keen to take things slowly: "We don't want to overwhelm ourselves until we're ready. We've always taken the 'let it grow organically' approach. Two years on and Surf-wax now employs a part time member of staff to administer orders and liaise with suppliers. So surf, so good.
Advice to other e-tailers
- Don't do it on a shoestring. Pay for good design. You may think this is a bit rich coming from somebody who has developed an ecommerce business for under a grand but Jo explains, "Some people seem to think they just have to build a store and people will come and buy. Our experience as web designers has shown that design is very important as is navigation, good optimisation and easy to find terms and conditions."
- Find your niche. "Unless you can undercut on prices, don't go for selling products that everyone else is selling too – for example ink cartridges, computers," advises Jo.
- You need to make sure your site is easy to navigate.
- Market the site effectively. "If you can not achieve good natural search engine listings, pay for them and make sure you take advantage of every single offline marketing opportunity too."
- Make your site 'sticky'. Add extra related content to your site and make sure it's updated regularly. Try to create a sense of community around your online store – perhaps look at adding a chatroom or forum for your customers.
