Website Closers® presents a highly successful, SBA Approved company operating within the thriving world of eCommerce, with a rising client base and something virtually every other business would solidly appreciate: a 100% long-term repeat customer rate. Their clients, in this case, are eCommerce businesses. Think about that: in 2021, there are an estimated 24 million eCommerce sites across the globe, and more and more are getting created every day. The growth of eCommerce has been absolutely astounding and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Retail eCommerce revenue in the U.S. now exceeds $469 billion, and eCommerce now makes up 13% of total U.S. retail sales.
While that sounds like a fiercely competitive marketplace, studies indicate that less than one million of these sites bring in more than $1,000 per year. That’s why there’s plenty of room for growth, and a key reason why this offering does so well.
Since eCommerce sites can’t operate without a functional, user friendly and well-maintained platform, this brand has done exceptionally well providing the kind of services that any aspiring entrepreneur needs, including website design, development that includes maintenance and customized solutions, and ongoing support. Helping new and existing companies transform a simple website into a profitable eCommerce platform is no small task, which is how this company retains its clients.
This brand also specializes in a host of other services that raise them to a significantly higher level of professionalism. Their work provides insights into how eCommerce businesses are finding their customer base and generating strong sales. It’s an interesting story about the shifting eCommerce landscape operating today.
The company was launched 7 years ago by a team with more than two decades of experience in website development, who specifically wanted to provide support and development services for eCommerce websites. The concept behind website support is simple: if your current website isn’t working for you and helping to deliver sales, let’s fix it and turn it around. The company brought to the table an expertise in analyzing, enhancing and updating websites as a service for long-term clients. In other words, to ensure that the finely greased wheels of the new website don’t skid off the tracks and endanger profitability, monthly maintenance is needed.
Website support is a relatively new business driver and could be considered a “fixer” business, one that steps in once a website that was developed by another agency fails to achieve the company’s financial goals or ends up lowering conversions.
For this brand, clients who seek out their support can purchase 40-hour or 80-hour blocks that are pre-paid and get used within 90 days.
The brand’s development service provides two proprietary processes offered with a fixed model. The “Essential” build process helps new companies get launched in the world of eCommerce. The “Brand Enhancement” process is designed for companies that want their website to give them a competitive edge over rival sites. That includes customized solutions to ensure their clients’ eCommerce sites can outperform what the competition is doing, whether it’s through private storefronts, advanced shipping methods, unique payment options inventory and stock management in sync with the eCommerce platform and providing exclusive discounts and pricing tiers for brand ambassadors and influencers.
Until 2020, the website support service was 90% of their gross revenue. At the end of the year, the brand launched its two proprietary development processes, which quickly became 10% of sales. However, in 2021 both the support service and the development process plans were splitting revenues right down the middle, each representing 50% of earnings.
As this company has demonstrated, their services are both lucrative and in-demand. In 2020, the average revenue per client was $32,000, but because clients stay on long-term, the brand has averaged $73,400+ in revenue per client.
Their development work has turned out to be a great introduction to the company, since 100% of those clients then become support clients. On the flip side, the numbers are equally encouraging: 78% of their support clients request their new development services.
Among their support clients, their average 90-day block is valued at $9,350, while the average price on their development work is $30,000. Satisfied clients often recommend their services to other companies which has been a key factor in their growth patterns.
This is a busy operation, one that current owner now devotes between 40 and 50 hours per week to running. The company has an experienced team in place that includes three full-time workers and two part-time contractors who focus on bookkeeping and handling client tasks. What they don’t have at this point is a digital marketing plan.
The company has social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn that are underutilized, but does not use either SEO or email marketing. Until now, the company has relied on word-of-mouth referrals, and presentations through webinars and industry conferences to seek out new clients.
That provides one of several strong ways to scale this business. Both social media and email marketing offer tremendous opportunities for any brand to boost growth organically, and this brand has the added advantage of being able to post their webinars on video sites such as YouTube to expand the customer base. Adding an educational blog on the website would help boost this brand’s search engine rankings and contribute to future growth as well.
The brand has set a goal of bringing on at least three new development clients each year, although bringing on new employees or contractors could easily help double or triple those numbers.
Another excellent option would be to upsell existing clients on upgrading their websites which would give the brand plenty of new development projects. Additional opportunities could come from new webinars and by promoting the business through upcoming industry conferences. And because Shopify is now the largest platform for small business eCommerce operators, adding that platform for design and development work might turn out to be highly lucrative since there’s so much eCom experience already present on the team.
There’s no question that this brand has a virtually unlimited number of prospective clients – literally anyone who starts an eCommerce business. It’s been estimated that thousands of new online stores got launched during the pandemic lockdowns in 2020, and now that consumer shopping habits have shifted so dramatically in favor of online purchasing, those trends are expected to keep accelerating for the foreseeable future.
This brand has taken care of itself very nicely by going well beyond simply doing website design to giving eCommerce sites the ability to develop a competitive edge. It’s no surprise that every client that has requested their development work has stayed on long term for ongoing support services.
For a buyer, this brand is a golden opportunity to scale a business with the proven track record of success and client retention that a lot of other companies would be envious of. Since so many new eCommerce sites need help getting their platform functioning successfully, this company is guaranteed to grow rapidly.
