Site Critique Series: Meet Our New Guinea Pig

• 15-Feb-06 | By

  Devin Comiskey

  
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In January, the call went out for an e-commerce site in need. We wanted to help bring online success to a worthy business. And, boy, did our readers respond. We received more submissions than ever before — thus, making the final choice very difficult. Our candidates ranged from 1995-era Web pages with bright, clashing colors, to professionally designed sites that knocked our socks off. In the end, we were left to choose between three sites to help out — with only one making the final cut.

ECommerce-Guide's e-commerce site critique series kicks off its 2006 campaign with ScoutingBooks.com. Now, don't think we chose this site because it was the "worst." Quite the contrary. It's much better looking than many of the ones we looked at. But, what made us want to help is that it serves a niche audience — albeit a large niche here in the U.S. — and definitely needed some guidance to move to the next level and boost sales.

Dave Tracewell, publisher and owner of HONOR Publishing Company in Kansas City, Missouri, launched ScoutingBooks.com roughly six years ago as a hobby. He has been in the Boy Scouting program for about 36 years both as a youth and as a Scout Leader. He says his first Web site only had about a dozen books on it and was lucky to get 100 hits a day (and quite happy to have even that). He's now getting over 2500 successful page requests per day.

"I welcome any constructive help I can get; I've been through a multitude of 'bad experiences' and inferior software, so I've kinda learned this stuff the hard way. I wish I knew then what I do now; it would have made things a lot simpler. I suspect that is the kind of information your readers are looking for, and one of the reasons I read your magazine 'cover to cover' each month. It has helped out on many levels and in many ways," Tracewell told ECommerce Guide.

"I own a small publishing company and it seemed a logical step to proceed with an e-commerce Web site to retail my books. I was taking orders by phone or e-mail, having the customer send me their check for payment.(no credit cards then) As the Web site grew, I did some research on low-cost shopping carts and found a very reasonably priced solution called QuickStore. It served me well for several years until I outgrew it and started wanting a more feature rich environment," he says.

After a couple of bad software choices, Tracewell finally found Miva Merchant, which he hosts through Hostasaurus.com. He says both the software and the ISP have been great.

"It has enough features 'out of the box' to get you up and running, and sports the flexibility to add modules as you need them and keep your site up-to date and fresh looking."

Tracewell has pursued a number of advertising strategies since launching ScoutingBooks.com and has seen some success.

"Over the last few years I've built up a fairly large e-mail list that I use both for in-store advertising, and also to rent out to 'screened' advertisers from time to time. I also have an e-zine that is very well received by my targeted audience, who are adult Scout leaders. It also includes advertising for store items and new product releases," Tracewell says.

ScoutingBooks.com is ECommerce-Guide.com's latest site critique guinea pig.

"Sales in the store didn't really become serious until about three years ago when I decided to devote myself full time to the effort. I've had about a 25-30 percent increase in sales each year since. I attribute this to the increase in products and diversifying my efforts in the items that I carry.

Tracewell started out with about a dozen books and now carries over 500 different titles, all of interest to people involved in Scouting, youth groups or the outdoors. He's added rare Scouting books, gift items, knives, plush animals, and patches over the last two years and, most recently, Scouting Scrapbook items and Camp Craft material.

"This helps 'round out' seasonal sales and helps cash flow throughout the year. We also wholesale books to other Scout Shops around the country," he adds.

"I've spent a fair amount of time during the last two years building name recognition. I've been successful in getting my Web site in the 'top ten' of most of the major search engines using targeted key words. If you do a search for "Scout books" on Google, Yahoo, Alta Vista, MSN, or HotBot, you will find us in the top ten searches. The same goes true for about five other targeted search terms we've identified.

Tracewell says his site also has several affiliates that have done quite well and he utilizes a few specific Scouting promotions throughout the year to help increase his customer base.

Although the site serves a niche audience, Tracewell is comfortable serving the scouting market because he's been involved with the program for so long. He says he's "one of them" and knows his clientele and what they need, want and expect from an online store.

"My biggest challenges have been inventory control, shipping, record integration and cash. I am looking at several solutions such as 'MOM' or StoneEdge order manager and also the possibility of outsourcing our shipping and fulfillment. Having started this whole thing on a shoestring budget, it's taken several years to make it a profitable enterprise. Had I come into this better financed, it would not have taken as long. Running an on-line e-commerce Web site is definitely NOT for the 'faint hearted,'" Tracewell concluded.

ECommerce Guide.com will bring you feedback from our expert panel during the next week and a half. Our panel includes contributors from ECommerce Guide, WebTrends and Affinity Internet. Stay tuned.

Devin Comiskey is the Managing Editor of ECommerce-Guide.com.

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