Wiggle-n-Waggle racks in sales instantly
ProStores just made it so easy to get started selling quickly and easily, without having to learn a lot of technical stuff. I used the ProStores template and customized it a little. It was so easy to add products.
Joshua Craven, Owner of www.Wiggle-n-Waggle.com
Wiggle-n-Waggle finds a global audience for glamorous doggy fashion with ProStores
Joshua Craven started selling his unique mix of dog accessories on eBay. Business was good, but he wanted to take his sales to the next level–all over the Web, and all over the world. ProStores helped make it happen. In February '06 Joshua opened his ProStores Web store, which has grown quickly, and is now responsible for the majority of his sales.
Joshua's Web store, Wiggle-n-Waggle, is a boutique of higher-end dog clothing and accessories. His products include a unique assortment of dog costumes, collars, jewelry, leashes, carriers, beds, and just about anything dog-related. From a dog tuxedo for a canine ring-bearer, to spa-quality aromatherapy dog fur conditioners, Wiggle-n-Waggle sells everything a pampered pooch might need. And as his ProStores Web store is proving, there are a lot of owners who love to pamper their pets.
Quick and easy to get up and selling
Joshua had a little problem. He wanted to start up a website, but didn’t want to spend a lot of time working on Web pages. He looked around and tried a few free trials, but everything seemed to take too much technical expertise, time and effort to set up. But then he found ProStores. "The other stores I tried were too difficult and complicated," he says. "ProStores just made it so easy to get started selling quickly and easily, without having to learn a lot of technical stuff. I used the ProStores template and customized it a little. It was so easy to add products. The software walked me through every step with the configuration wizard. I made my first sale within a week and my products were showing up on Froogle. Then I started advertising. The ProStores Web store took off so quickly; I was hardly prepared for all the sales. The first month I sold $100. The second month I sold $500. The third month I sold $2,500. And now I'm averaging $10,000 to $15,000 a month. I did $45,000 in sales in October–that's a whole lot of doggie costumes!"
A great value for the money
Starting up a business can be expensive and risky. Joshua was committed to his concept, but didn't want to risk a lot of capital unnecessarily. ProStores offered the low start-up costs Joshua was hoping to find, so he could save his cash for inventory. "ProStores wasn’t just the easiest solution I found," says Joshua. "I compared prices too. I shopped around for an out-of-box shopping cart, which would have cost me $5,000, plus another $10,000 for a Web designer. So ProStores really saved me a lot, just in getting me up and running. Within the 30-day free trial I was already selling product. And now I pay just $74.95 a month for ProStores Advanced. Other companies I looked at charge $100 to $200 a month for similar features. Plus, ProStores is better at what they do for you–the Search Engine Optimization feature always seems to rank my pages higher than the competition. I’m getting 200 clicks a day just from SEO and Google Base, which are free. At an average cost of 35¢ a click for pay-per-click advertising, the ProStores features give me $70 a day–$2,100 a month–in free advertising alone. It’s an outstanding value."
Reliable service and convenient features
ProStores' tech support and time-saving features have made Joshua's job even easier. "I had a few tech issues here and there, but tech support was always able to answer questions and resolve things quickly," he says. "The service just keeps getting better–everything has been running very smoothly and reliably in the past year. I really appreciate how easy it is to list and edit items. It saves me a lot of time because I don't need to create each individual page in my website–ProStores automatically creates a link to the right category and uploads the products to shopping sites for me. If I had to do it myself it would take 6 hours a day at least–and who wants to do that? I don't like to spend a lot of time working on websites. I love how ProStores runs itself so I can focus on other aspects of the business."
ProStores just keeps getting better
Joshua is delighted that ProStores continually strives to improve its product and service. "The last release, ProStores 8.1, is fantastic," he says. "A lot of the features I wished for were delivered with that release. ProStores already has a good product, but I am really impressed with how they are always adding features and working on how to make it even better. Every time I think of a feature I'd like, it seems like six months later they come out with it. For example, I used to wish they had shared attributes, like sizes, so I wouldn't have to add these onto each item individually. Now with 8.1, I can add them all at once. I also love the back-ordered items feature they rolled out in 8.1. Now I can ship out individual items and mark others as back-ordered. They never change ProStores so much you aren't familiar with it or need to relearn it, they just keep making these great little feature additions for greater functionality and convenience."
ProStores makes it easy to drive traffic
One of the biggest challenges for any Web store is driving traffic. Technical experts can help maximize traffic, but Joshua wasn’t a tech guru. Luckily, ProStores offered built-in tools that anyone can use to help bring in more customers, as well as advertising resources. "I'm not that tech-savvy," Joshua says. "I use the ProStores Demand Manager to automatically send feeds to the shopping comparison sites–Google Base, Shopping.com, and Shopzilla. ProStores makes it so easy–I get a lot of customers that way. I also buy Google AdWords and get business from word of mouth. On eBay I'd get lots of customers looking for everything. With the shopping comparison sites I get customers looking for exactly what I sell. You have to spend money on advertising, but it's a pretty small percentage of my sales. I usually spend $1,000 to $2,000 a month on advertising, and get a high conversion rate because the site is so user-friendly. The Email Marketing features are great for driving repeat business. ProStores makes it easy to create offers such as free shipping to help bring customers back to buy again. I also get customers by using the ProStores Search Engine Optimization features. As a result of SEO, I'm getting higher rankings in search results. I'm often number 2 or 3 on searches, so I'm getting a lot of sales just from that."
Opening up a global market
Before long, Joshua's dreams of tapping into a global market were becoming a reality. "I can hardly believe how quickly the website has grown into a profitable business," he says. "I expect to do a quarter million in sales this year. I’m even selling internationally–to Canada, Mexico, and Europe, as well as all over the U.S. With ProStores, I feel like I have the whole world at my door."
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