Like most new online store builders, Andrea Bridges went through some trial and error before finding the right solution for her online business. “I started with a web company that couldn’t deliver the right backend and had no way of tracking inventory. All products needed to be input by the web builder. I wanted more control and needed a website that performed like a large company’s would. ” She found Volusion’s all in one solution by chance and built her online store using the Gold plan which she notes “was the perfect way to start for a beginner.”

RepeatPossessions.com was launched in August of 2007, and with her Volusion store sales have doubled in 2008. The busy mother of four teenagers has proven that you don’t need to be technically savvy to successfully start and manage your own online business. “I was impressed with the ease of inputting products, tracking inventory, order capability and especially the customer service. I am not the techie-est person, but Volusion made it much easier on me. I would probably go further if I spent time reading the manuals online, but sometimes I do trial and error and when all else fails, I call customer service who have been wonderful!” Andrea offers her own excellent customer service and a 100% satisfaction guarantee on her online store to keep customers coming back for more. “I have more and more customers coming to my site and “repeat” business is a big part of that. Friends refer friends, and continue to come back for my products.”

What advice can Andrea offer new store owners? Find your niche, continue learning, and use the tools you have available to your advantage. “I am finding my niche of products and am creating the site to reflect that. There are many features that Volusion offers that can increase my sales, and I learn something new almost daily. My site has grown so much since conception. I continue to learn about blogs and SEO, and with Volusion’s support I have been able to further market my store.”

What future plans does Andrea have in mind for her online store? “Because of the success of my website, I am re-designing the look to make it even more customer friendly. I am off to a wonderful start and look forward to the upcoming holiday season!”

You can browse Andera’s collection of fun, fashionable and affordable clothing now at www.RepeatPossessions.com.

-Stacie Leonard, Ecommerce Marketing/Copywriting

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Blair Rhodes had experience with websites as a web designer for Hollywood studios and software companies. That’s why when his online store, The Pashmina Store, went down during the Christmas season of 2004, he knew he could do better.”We knew we needed a more reliable company and a better website, but the final straw that made us switch was Christmas 2004 when the website was down more than it was up. Every hour it was down

would cost us several hundred dollars in sales and technical support was non-responsive. It was horribly frustrating,” said Blair.

After doing much research, Blair chose Volusion. “I’m happy to say that we made the right choice in going with Volusion. The Pashmina Store has had 3 very successful Christmas seasons with Volusion and I cannot remember a single case of downtime during even the heaviest of traffic. Plus, our average sales growth has been over 60% a year since we have moved to Volusion.”

Blair has also used Volusion’s admin features to help streamline his business operations. “A great backend feature is being able to manage inventory so easily. I always know how many items we have in stock and can easily calculate our total inventory value. The most important day-to-day improvement that Volusion has helped with is shipping. By quickly being able to import and export customer shipping files directly in UPS software, we have saved over a thousand manhours each year. We actually used to have to enter every shipment by hand! Another great day-to-day time saver is the batch order printing and processing. This also used to be done one-by-one. During the busiest times when hundreds of orders are coming in fast, this saves an enormous amount of time.”

The Pashmina Store has continued to experience phenomenal growth since starting with Volusion. “The Pashmina Store is expecting to continue to grow at 60% a year for the next several years. We plan to do this by expanding our product line to include more elaborate prints and designs on our pashmina scarves, wraps and shawls and also adding cashmere clothing items such as sweaters and robes. As we continue to grow and attract more traffic, we will most likely move to a semi-dedicated hosting plan at Volusion. Since Volusion has been a big part of our success, we plan to keep our business there as our traffic and hosting needs increase.”

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Dennis Altman refused to spend $3000 and wait nine weeks to get the electronic air suspension on his Range Rover fixed at the dealership. “I hung up still laughing, when I settled down I hit Google and started learning. I’ve worked on cars since I was 14, my 7 years in the US Navy I trained and worked as a pneumatic and hydraulics mechanic on nuclear powered submarines so I knew I could tackle this problem.

Within a few days of serious digging I had found almost everything I needed to repair it for about $400. I had the suspension running in an afternoon,” said Dennis.

Dennis quickly realized that there was a market out there for Range Rover parts, since the dealers took so long and charged so much. ” I did a little brain-storming with my wife and friends, my wife made up a logo and I bought enough orings to put a 10 oring kits on eBay for $12. each in Jan ‘06. I figured if they sold by the end of the month I would be happy, and have some beer money. They sold out in less than a week and I’ve been growing since.”

Rover-Renovations started on eBay, but Dennis found that eBay was not scalable to his operations. “EBay was good for low volume, but more than 3-5 orders/day was killing me, it took 10 minutes to process an order and print shipping labels. I think recently eBay has gone downhill, kind of like a good antique market that has let in junk-sellers and the good dealers stop coming. I keep a few things listed there just to drive traffic to my store, I get maybe one order/month through eBay and I dread the email. I have few ‘problem’ customers and 90% of them purchase through eBay.”

After trying out a Yahoo store, Dennis used Volusion’s Yahoo Import tool to quickly switch his entire store to Volusion’s platform. “My Ystore import was almost 2 years ago, so I don’t remember much of the import other than I was amazed at how fast it was. I only had to setup my categories and payment settings (I already had my merchant account), do some smoothing and transfer my DNS settings.”

Since switching to Volusion, Dennis now gets 51% of his traffic from natural search results. “Volusion has helped my marketing immensely by saving me the time of worrying about SEO, it just happens automatically. I don’t have to constantly comb over my site for improvements,” said Dennis.

Dennis has big plans for www.rover-renovations.com. “I plan on leaving the day job in the next 6 months (several outside factors are going into the exact date) and going full time at running Rover Renovations. I am constantly adding to my product-line with a goal of being THE place to go for all things Range Rover. It is a small niche, and I want to own it.”

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Gina Geraci knew she had something special to sell online being located in New York. “New York Bagels are famous for their one of a kind taste and texture. It is one of the many things people crave after leaving New York. I knew it would be a hit because New York bagels can not be found anywhere else but here.

It is a unique gift idea and a great alternative to flowers and candy. The name New York Bagel Box was the perfect name for our online business.”

Gina originally went with GoDaddy based on the price but soon found the cart too restrictive. “Volusion offers options not available from GoDaddy. I was able to customize the free Volusion template to make my site look as if it was created just for NY Bagel Box. The old saying is true…you get what you pay for!”

Volusion’s automated features have helped Gina handle busy holiday seasons with ease. “The gift certificate options are a great way for our customers to purchase gifts to fit any budget. It also allows the gift recipient to select product preferences to satisfy any flavor craving. During the holidays, this is our most used marketing feature. I also love the fact that my shipping labels can be created with the touch of a button right on the “process order” page. During our busy season, this feature is priceless.”

Gina’s ambitions do not stop at bagels. “In the future NY Bagel Box plans to continue satisfying New York Bagel cravings all over the USA with hopes of developing a new web site that will deliver more New York specialties …..any guesses on what they might be?”

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Kyle Hungate at Hungate Business Services decided it was time to stop relying on the phone and purchase orders and time to bring his business online.Initially, Kyle just wanted to use the internet to take orders. He had no intention of pushing his business online. “Going online for us was more to capture receivables from our existing client base faster using Volusion’s shopping cart software in conjunction with accepting credit cards. When customers ordered supplies from us before using traditional methods i.e. check, it wasn’t uncommon for us to wait over 45 days to get paid. We chose

Volusion over other shopping carts on the market because of the simplicity to setup the store—none of our staff had any real web experience. We evaluated other carts but without question Volusion was the easiest to evaluate and the step by step ‘how to’ movies were invaluable,” said Kyle.

Kyle got some unexpected results from using Volusion to open his online store. “We never planned really to sell beyond our client base initially! We thought we would just tell our clients about the site and try to solve our problem with account receivables–we estimate that 60% of our sales so far have been clients outside our normal customer base.”

Kyle turned to Volusion’s design team to make his site, www.hbsx.com, look professional. “Communication and the experience with the design services was top notch, Yuri did a wonderful job. I sketched out what I thought would be a good storefront and he expanded it to make it functional and very appealing to the visitor,” said Kyle.

Hungate Business Services has big plans for the online space. “Our plans going forward are to grow and expand our online offerings to our clients as much as we can. We have seen the power of the online business and it’s definitely more of a focal point for us now. We hope in the very near future we can dedicate a team to serve our online community just as we have for our brick and mortar operations.”

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