A SWITCH FROM RETAIL TO E-COMMERCE SAVES A FAMILY BUSINESS
Winter economies show up all the time. There are times that things get tough, and we need to look at new ways to add value. I have managed to grow consistently during these times and it was because of what I call “The Core”. When you recognise the core you call see the patterns in other businesses and how they turned things around. I was doing some research for a client when I came across one of those stories.
Like many brick and mortar retailers during the GFC in 2008, Goedeker’s, an appliance and furniture company that was located in Ballwin, Minnesota in the US, saw sales drop significantly and lost market share to big box competitors like “The Home Depot” and “Lowe’s”. At the time, the owner (Steve Goedeker” decided he had to expand his market to survive, and since opening new physical stores was out of the question… no one was dolling out capital… be decided to launch an e-commerce site.
While Goedeker had always thought of himself as a DIY guy, he knew that he was going to need to find some mentors. So he taught himself as much of the site building process as possible. He attended a Search Engine Strategies marketing expo and an Internet Retailer design conference. Then he hired a web designer to coach him through building his site and adding some of the 2,500 product listings to the initial online store.
Within 6 years Goedeker had transformed the business into a fleet-footed e-tail powerhouse with a national customer base. Goedeker’s online site features more than 200,000 products and brings 92 percent of the company’s revenue. The staff have grown to over 90 from a modest 15 in the beginning, most of whom work in the online side of the business (including the warehouse) which ships all over the country.
California, New York, Texas and Florida remain the largest sales regions for Geodeker’s.
“We thought if we could do 5 percent of our business online that would be enough to get us through the hard times, Now we understand that online is where the business is. That’s where the growth is.” – Steve Goedeker
That not so say it was easy… the learning curve was steep. Here are two of the top lessons for e-tail business:
MASTER YOUR DOMAIN
Goedeker’s launched online under the generic sounding domain name number1appliance.com, which Goedeker believed would have greater national appeal than the company name. Just one year into the project, after adding furniture and plumbing product lines to the site’s offerings, he decided to change the name to number1direct.com. Finally, in 2011, be renamed the site goedekers.com.
He now says he should have stuck with the company’s real name from the beginning; all those changes cost years of valuable SEO (search engine optimization) which is website credibility.
Lesson: Choose your domain name wisely, then be prepared to commit to it for the duration of your company’s life.
SEO ALL THE TIME
Now that he runs an e-tail business, Goedeker has moved his battle against big box stores online.
“If I want to build my organic search results for, say, ‘GE refrigerator,’ I have Sears, Lowe’s, The Home Depot and all those people who get the top rankings,” – Steve Goedeker.
To help Goedeker earn a spot near (or sometimes atop) the search engine rankings, the company employs a five person, full time SEO team. Their efforts include maintaining careful keyword placement on each page of the site, writing relevant blog posts to boost search results and continually studying and testing the latest optimisation strategies. And this NEVER stops.
Lesson: Thriving online requires a near 24/7 commitment to SEO through keywords, fresh content, relevant information and the constant additional of new product listings.
To doing the next thing and mastering it!
Mike Johnston
Co Founder & Architect of Evolve
