Throughout the month of November we will be running our “SMB blog series.” While SMB traditionally refers to “Small/Medium Business,” here at Volusion it has come to mean something else: “Small Made Big.” This month we will be sharing resources, tips, stats, and inspirations to help you turn your small ecommerce endeavor into something greater- something BIG!

If you’re a regular reader you’ve probably noticed that we run a Volusion success story about once a month. Each success story features a Volusion client that has made it big with their business. If you haven’t read them, here’s a quick summary of our most recent success stories, as well as the business lesson to take away from each story:

• HockeyShot
  In two years, JP Brun managed to create one of the busiest hockey training sites on the web. His clientele ranges from beginners to international hockey stars and his markets include the US, Canada, and all of Europe. Moving to Volusion’s platform gave his company the boost in efficiency that they needed to be able to grow the business by more than 300% last year.
  Business Lesson: Choosing the right tools can have a huge impact on the future of your business!
• AceTool
  In the three years that Maria Polidoro has had her online store with Volusion, it has climbed the search engine ranks and now is surpassing most of its competitors in the highly competitive industry of hand and power tools. Their SEO investments have paid off significantly!
  Business Lesson: Invest in your future! (more…)
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JP Brun is a 27 year-old lifelong hockey enthusiast from New Brunswick, Canada. He is also co-owner of one of the most popular hockey stores online. Because of their worldwide online presence, HockeyShot has almost become synonymous with the sport of hockey.

HockeyShot.com (and its Canadian counterpart HockeyShot.ca) offer more than 700 hockey training products to help hockey players of all levels hone their skills. We caught up to JP to discuss what has made HockeyShot so successful. Here’s the insight he shared with us:

Volusion: When did you first start HockeyShot.com as an online business?
JP: The HockeyShot.com online store with full product line-up started in 2007. We have been with Volusion since March of 2008.

Volusion: Why did you decide to change providers and move your online store to Volusion?
JP: We moved due to the frustration of always having to contact programmers to customize work for us to help meet our online store needs. Our last shopping cart simply did not have nearly enough features to operate efficiently. There were many tasks that required manual data entry and time with our old cart, which are now automated with Volusion’s cart.

Volusion has helped us become a much more efficient online store, and permit us to focus more on sales and marketing to grow our business. Since going with Volusion, our sales have increased over 300%.

Volusion: Wow, that’s a huge increase! Which Volusion features in particular do you think helped contribute to that growth? (more…)

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About once a month we sit down and decide which company we’d like to feature in a success story for our blog. This month one company stood out to us, because well… they’re standing out for pretty much everyone right now.

AceTool.com is a nationally known online retailer of hand and power tools and accessories and have been with Volusion since 2006. We spoke with Maria Polidoro, owner of AceTool.com, about her thriving business. Here is what we learned:

Volusion: Can you briefly describe your business for our readers?
Maria: Ace Tool is a leader in retail tool sales. We also do repairs and carry a huge array of accessories and parts.

Volusion: I understand that you have a retail store, tell us a little bit more about that.
Maria: I founded Ace Tool in 1983 in Wantagh, NY. It grew out of the desire to bring the best quality products and service to this community. We don’t just sell the best tools, we host demonstrations in our store, and repair everything on site. Our online business flourished from there with the help of some great partners like Volusion.

Volusion: Did you start out with Volusion or were you using another ecommerce provider previously?
Maria: Ace Tool actually went live in 2005, so we did move our online store to Volusion from another provider. We made this decision due to the fact that our previous provider charged us a percentage of every sale that we made through them.

Volusion: What role would you say Volusion has played in your success?
Maria: Volusion has made it easier to run our store with the ease of product uploads, the simple search engine optimization, and the abundance of features that make it quick and simple to get our products as visible as possible to our customers. (more…)

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Mark and JoAnn Thompson sat down with us to discuss their online motorcycle accessory business. In April of 2007 they started www.CycleAccessoryStore.com with MyEbiz, selling everything needed to “Ride, Rock and Talk;” but less than a year later they had moved their store to Volusion. They shared with us some interesting information about their experiences switching ecommerce providers and utilizing all of the resources Volusion has to offer after making the move.

Volusion: So how did you get started in motorcycle accessories?
Thompsons: We had a bike we were trading in so we took the chrome accessories off to sell on eBay to make a little extra money towards our new bike, and once we put them up for auction the response was just overwhelming! So we thought “Wow there might be a business in this.” We did a lot of research to figure out exactly what we might want to sell (because the world of bike accessories can be endless) and then got started with our new business.

Volusion: So describe what you settled on; what exactly do you sell on www.CycleAccessoryStore.com?
Thompsons: We offer motorcycle accessories (primarily for cruisers).  We specialize in motorcycle audio communication and music. Our audio, stereos, and accessories are miles tested and rider assured.  For the Harley Baggers we offer Biketronics Stereo plug and play systems. We are also a major dealer for Kendon stand-up/fold-up motorcycle trailers. We have lifts for sport and dirt bikes, as well as lifts for cruisers and choppers. Our handlebar mounted sound systems blend perfectly into any motorcycle allowing riders to simply dock their MP3, iPod, or Satellite Radio receiver on their handlebar and add a personal soundtrack to their ride.  We have motorcycle audio systems (wired and Bluetooth) with helmet headsets, CB communication or rider and passenger intercom.

Volusion: You said you were originally with MyEbiz, why did you decide to leave?
Thompsons: It was okay to get started, but [MyEbiz] lacked all the bells and whistles that Volusion offers.  We enjoy the feature rich website by Volusion that includes wish lists, email a friend, promotional products on the home page and much more.  We quickly out grew MyEbiz and needed to go with a host and website that could handle the traffic.  After doing quite a bit of research on different hosts Volusion rose to the top and the references and write ups on Volusion were wonderful. It was a no-brainer. (more…)

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In 2006 Loren Taylor moved his water fountain website www.SoothingWalls.com to the Volusion platform. As he explains, “I tried several ecommerce solutions and none compared to the options and flexibility that Volusion offered. I was instantly sold on their service.” But his move to Volusion was just the beginning!

It’s A Success!

After getting SoothingWalls up and running, sales just snowballed. From 2007 to 2008 SoothingWalls saw revenue grow 600%, but this massive surge did not slow Loren down- SoothingWalls is on record to grow an additional 100% by the end of this year.

Currently Loren is maintaining www.SoothingWalls.com and www.ethanpaulfountains.com, but within the last three years Loren has opened a total of 10 online stores with Volusion, so it’s anyone’s guess as to how many stores he’ll have running at this time next year.

Loren has a natural entrepreneurial spirit. He’s tried it all and he’s succeeded in a big way! So what advice can he give to fellow online store owners? Simply put, Loren advises, “Don’t give up too easy.  Volusion offers the tools to succeed online, just have faith in yourself and your products.” (more…)

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