Curry Simple doubles customers and tops search results
We wanted an established, well-known company. ProStores is owned by eBay, and had lower fees, easy integration with eBay and PayPal, and the setup and design was more user-friendly.
Michael Moran, Owner of www.currysimple.com
Restaurateur brings Thai food cooking home
Michael Moran worked in the food business for 14 years, including many years of experience with a Thai food restaurant. Through this experience, he saw an opportunity to solve a problem. Many people love Thai food, but most had no idea how to cook authentic-tasting Thai food at home, let alone find all the complex and exotic ingredients. So Michael started his company, Curry Simple, which lets anyone cook a restaurant-quality Thai meal at home in minutes. Michael and his partner in Thailand work together to develop and import the products, which are packaged using the latest technology developed by NASA to ensure freshness.
ProStores outshines the competition
Michael knew he wanted to open a Web store, but wanted to make sure he chose a trouble-free solution. He also wanted a store that would be compatible with popular payment methods, such as PayPal. And he wanted it all at a great price. "We wanted an established, well-known company. We looked at another provider, and had actually signed up for a store. But then we found out about ProStores through an Internet search. ProStores is owned by eBay, so I knew they would have a quality product we could trust. I looked at what ProStores offered for the price and it seemed a lot better. ProStores had lower transaction fees, lower monthly fees, easy integration with eBay and PayPal, and the setup and design was more user-friendly. So I cancelled our other store, and set up our ProStores Web store."
Michael launched his ProStores Web store on January 2, 2006, at the Business level. Since then he has upgraded to the Advanced level to take advantage of the additional features. He hopes to upgrade to Enterprise soon so he can start an Affiliate Marketing program.
Great support and resources make ProStores even easier to use
Michael has big plans for his company, Curry Simple. He needed a Web store that would let him start out quickly and inexpensively, yet still be able to expand with his business. ProStores let him do both with ease. "Everything about ProStores is very simple, streamlined, and well-automated, from sending customers order confirmation emails to the simplicity of upgrading. It's great how you can upgrade to the next level without disrupting the business. I can customize the site to be exactly the way I want it. It's easy to add on, grow and customize without starting all over again. And there are lots of great resources for building and improving the business. Technical support helped me out a lot in the first week when I was setting everything up. You can download 200 pages of information to answer just about any question, but sometimes I'd just call tech support to get the answer to save time. They're always available 24 hours a day to answer my questions–and I know because I made many calls in the middle of the night. Getting my problem solved helped me have a good night's sleep many times. I've had nothing but great experiences with calling tech support, and never had to wait more than a minute to get someone on the line."
"The ProStores Discussion Board is a great resource for improving your business", says Michael. "Other store owners gave me great ideas for neat things I wouldn't have thought of, like having a thumbnail picture of each item in the shopping cart. I got the code for that right off the board. Another great tip which helped improve my conversion rate was the SSL graphic I put near my Add-to-Cart button. It's a simple little graphic that says "Secured by Thawte", but it reassures buyers and draws their eyes to the Add-to Cart button. I've noticed a real improvement in conversion since I added it. I think ProStores watches the needs that users mention in the boards as well, because they are constantly updating and upgrading the product features to meet those needs."
ProStores helps Curry Simple establish a national presence
Michael's Curry Simple Web store is doing well, selling 500 to 700 packs a week, from 100 to 120 orders. But for Michael, the sales are only a part of the reason he needed a website. Michael's ultimate goal is to get Curry Simple into a wide range of retail stores nationwide. And ProStores is an important part of his marketing plan. "Having a ProStores Web store helps us build our national presence and establish credibility as a company," Michael says. "Since opening our ProStores Web store, we've been able to get our products into retail stores, such as Whole Foods and gourmet specialty stores. Having a website helps us build up a customer base nationally in states where we're not yet available at retail. Customers may request retailers to carry our products, and we can show retailers that there is a demand in their area from our ProStores sales there. Our website is also a resource for our retail customers. The website is listed on our packaging, and customers can visit to view recipes and cooking videos for our products. ProStores has played an important role in our marketing plan and success so far."
Email marketing helps increase sales
Michael takes advantage of ProStores' built-in marketing tools to get new customers and drive repeat business. "I use Constant Contact, ProStores' email marketing program. For the money, it's the best marketing tool I've found so far. I now have a newsletter subscriber base of 3,000. It not only helps with repeat business: some of my customers even forward the newsletter to friends. I put personality into it, so it's something my subscribers look forward to receiving."
Search Engine Optimization drives traffic
Getting the word out about your product is important to any business. ProStores' built-in tools helps put Curry Simple in front of thousands each day. "ProStores' Search Engine Optimization tools are amazing–they're a huge value. I didn't hire anyone to help with SEO, I just used the ProStores tools. By having great content and really using all the available ProStores tools, we're now getting great positions in natural search. We're coming up as number 1 for many things, such as Thai Food Wholesale–and that's out of almost 2 million pages. In fact, we come up number 1 for many related searches, in both sponsored and natural search. We're number 2 and number 3 for red curry on Google–that's just under Wikipedia! We're already next to companies that have been up since 1999."
"It's easy to add content and pages to ProStores, which really helps improve our positioning in search results. We keep adding new retail locations to the site. These high rankings are driving a tremendous growth in our site traffic. We're now getting 1,500 people coming into our ProStores Web store every day, and that number is rapidly growing. In the last couple months we've been growing by an additional 200 unique visits each day per month. By the end of the year, we're expecting 2,500-3,000 visitors a day. Most of this traffic and growth is from natural search, due to our high position in search engines. It's hard for such a new company to achieve such high rankings. Most companies don't get results this good even after hiring a consultant. So I'm more than happy with ProStores Search Engine Optimization–I'm ecstatic at the results!"
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