Website Closers® presents an eCommerce site that’s quickly becoming a leader in multiple in-demand verticals – having taken advantage of the public’s expanded interest in eCommerce – to operate 8 highly successful websites, each one selling something unique and with a different target audience. The company has a massive audience and Repeat Customer rates as high as 70% on some of their sites, which has brought them a phenomenal $50 million in sales. This company has been in business for more than 20 years and was experiencing significant profits well before the Covid pandemic prompted a major shift in consumer shopping habits toward online spending.
In fact, this company has been a trailblazer in many of its niche categories, finding not just the buyers for their DTC sales but also a healthy number of wholesale and B2B accounts that bring them a lot of repeat business.
This company operates niche websites that appeal to both individual consumers and retailers, and they are now the largest specialist vendor in the U.S. in numerous categories, including the sale of flags and flagpoles, chimney systems, and British food and tea. The company is rising quickly as a top competitor in several other niche spaces, including construction hard hats and related safety products, and women’s work boots.
The acceleration of online shopping in the past two years will give the buyer of this business a huge advantage in 2023. In 2022, the eCommerce industry is projected to be worth $5.55 trillion, with 24.5% of total purchases being made online. In 2022, 87% of shoppers did online research before making a purchase, and it’s estimated there are now 2.14 billion online shoppers worldwide. These trends are likely to significantly accelerate in the new digital economy, as statistics suggest that by 2040, 95% of all purchases will be through eCommerce stores.
The challenge many new eCommerce businesses have in this field is high competition. There are an estimated 12–24 million eCommerce sites around the world, with new ones being launched every single day. Strategies for staying competitive have often focused on selecting the right high-demand products and using creative content marketing to stand out in the crowd. This company, on the other hand, has set a tremendous example. If at first you succeed at one site, repeat the process, and launch a new one.
Founded in 2001 as a seller of U.S. flags, the company’s initial success gave them the foresight to keep expanding, either by launching new sites with different products or by purchasing existing sites that were driving strong sales. Today they have grown so rapidly that they now have 20,000 in-stock items, 26,000+ DropShip products, and 8,000+ packaged items. Their product listings are diverse. The company has earned $16 million in sales on their flags and flagpoles, $14 million on their chimney and fireplace products, and $9 million on their construction safety items.
In addition to their 8 websites, the company has expanded its sales channels to make their listings available on Amazon, Walmart and eBay. These channels now represent 12% of the sales mix and have brought in $7 million in sales.
The company offers a mix of their own brand of products – which represent 40% of their sales – as well as other brands. With so many different products, sales are healthy all year long. They have the added benefit of certain products enjoying peak sales at different times, such as summer for their flags, fall for the safety products and winter for their fireplace and British tea products.
The organization has been able to excel at customer service. Most of their orders are shipped from their three warehouses, which include two near Pittsburgh and one in Nevada. They operate out of a 110,000-square-foot facility in New Stanton, Pennsylvania, assisted by a staff of 120 who manage daily operations that include shipping, production, customer service, IT, accounting and merchandising.
That experienced team has enabled this company to serve 400,000+ customers, and they are shipping between 2,600 and 5,000 packages every day. To keep up with demand, the company stocks 20,000+ items in their inventory, at a value of around $10 million.
In addition to shipments from their warehouse, they use Amazon FBA for shipments and are planning to do the same on Walmart. Using a skilled team of in-house engineers, the company developed its own technology platform and reordering system that works in conjunction with NetSuite and Big Commerce. That system not only contributes to their fast shipping, but has received national attention, including being given the Best Online Shops award by Newsweek magazine for the last 3 years.
Wholesale pricing is being offered for merchants and distributors. Today they have 1,000+ wholesale customers, which represents 10% of sales, and they do particularly well with certain products that retailers want, including logo hard hatsflags and flagpoles.
Email marketing has played a pivotal role in the company’s growth. Their email subscribers range from 63,000+ for their chimney websites to 560,000+ for their flag store, and in total, they have more than 1.4 million subscribers in their database. The company sends out weekly email messages from mailing lists for each store. They estimate that this campaign has generated $2.97 million, or 9% of their website revenue.
They also generate a considerable amount of organic traffic through their social media marketing and from advertising on television, which are both producing strong returns. One of their best strategies on social media has been their video marketing campaigns on YouTube.
They also have an SEO program for each site and several blogs to help expand their customer base. The result is that they get between 34,000+ and 196,000+ unique monthly visits on their websites, for a total of more than 713,000+ unique monthly visitors and nearly 1 million sessions.
With four managers to supervise their large team, the company knows how to successfully process orders and get them shipped quickly. That includes both their instock orders and those orders that are drop shipped directly from their supplier. Their employees include a sales team that has been able to beef up their wholesale accounts.
Purchasing this business means getting 8 thriving websites, an education in how to do things the right way at scale online, the steady recurring revenue that comes with each site, the ability to scale quickly in numerous ways, including by beefing up the sales team, launching affiliate and influencer marketing campaigns, and adding additional products in new categories.
