Description: Cover World was launched back in 2017 by Steven Dietrich. Cover World was originally a jet ski cover ecommerce storefront.  The site now sells bimini tops and boat covers, with RV and car covers being released soon.

The COVID19 ecommerce boom has helped fuel growth for the store, in part due to increased demand for marine related products.  Cover World has been lucky to work with only USA manufacturers, which helped allow for on time fulfillment while competitors selling overseas covers couldn’t stock covers.

Technologies Used: Steven states, “We started on Magento 1 and quickly upgraded to Magento 2.  It was very buggy at first but with a senior level M2 developer you’ll be fine.  We chose Magento 2 due to a custom and large database requirement (250,000 product SKUs).

For marketing I’d skip the SEO agencies and hire a good content writer/planner first.  A good PPC agency is key if you are going to run ads efficiently, checkout The PPC Guys.”

Advice / Tips: Steven finished, “I’ve worked with a number of developers and web hosts over the years, my current setup with LexiConn and a Florida based Magento developer is so much better now.  Let LexiConn take care of DevOps and server side items, they’re better than everyone I tried and communication is a near instant reply.  I’d recommend hiring an individual freelancer to handle development, agencies don’t normally have motivation to get deeply involved in every project.  It’s a night and day difference when your hosting and development just works, thanks LexiConn!”

Description: Metolius Climbing came to be when Doug Phillips started making rock climbing gear out of his garage in Camp Sherman, Oregon during the early 1980s. Metolius Climbing, takes its name from the Metolius River near his house. The company slowly outgrew the garage and relocated to Bend, Oregon and is now a brand that has worldwide recognition. It’s still a relatively small company owned and operated by climbers and outdoor enthusiasts.

Jason from the company states, “While Metolius does sell directly to the public via our website the website is mostly an online catalog and a source of information for retail outlets like REI or Moosejaw who sell our equipment in their brick and mortar stores or their websites, as well as a resource for our international distributors in over 45 countries. Rock climbing has many disciplines within the sport like bouldering, big wall climbing, trad climbing, indoor climbing, and sport climbing. Metolius makes products for all these categories like crash pads, porta-ledges, packs, bags, carabiners, climbing protection like cams, gloves, harnesses, climbing holds, training boards, plus much more. Our website is also a great source of information giving tips on training, or guides on how to safely use our equipment.”

Technologies Used: Jason continued, “Metolius hired a Certified ShopSite Design company to design and build our new website but unfortunately they had to close up shop during the process. But they recommended us to another Certified ShopSite Designer by the name of Lauren Brewer from Lauren Hill Design. Her experience and expertise with the ShopSite platform is second to none, as well as her knowledge of website development. Also another great resource is the ShopSite forums which I have used many times over the years.”

Advice / Tips: Jason finished, “I can’t say enough good things about the support team at LexiConn. It is probably the best customer support I have ever experienced. They have hosted our website for over ten years and I have gotten to know many of them by name. Whether you call or email the response is always quick, and the entire staff is helpful, knowledgeable, and friendly.”

Description: Dave from Custom Dynamics states, “We are committed to manufacturing and distributing only the highest quality motorcycle lights and accessories. From LED Accent Lights to LED Headlamps and LED Turn Signals, you can shop our online store! Based in Youngsville, NC, Custom Dynamics(r) was founded in 2002 with a focus on offering the highest quality LED lighting products and electrical modules to the motorcycle industry. We continually strive toward our company vision to be the world’s leading seller of aftermarket motorcycle LED products and accessories through our commitment to new product development and superior customer support. Our product lines include motorcycle products (Harley-Davidson(r), Indian(r) and other metric models) as well as options for UTV, snowmobiles, automobiles and more!”

Technologies Used: The site is running Magento 2, and has integrated a variety of features.  These include live chat, parts finder, a blog, and Constant Contact integration for newsletters.

Advice / Tips: Dave finished, “Make your site organized and user friendly! Custom Dynamics(r) has an extensive, ever-growing product line which includes multiple product fitments, applications, etc. We’ve worked to ensure that our website is still easy to shop, even with so many products available. Magento 2 has helped with this organization especially with easy to navigate categories/sub-categories and our “Parts Finder”. We ensure our site has a fast speed and that it’s mobile friendly as many of our sales are through mobile devices. It is also important to analyze your data/reports in order to continue making improvements, and to stay on top of ecommerce technologies and trends.”

Description: Construction Programs & Results (www.markupandprofit.com) provides business management training in the construction industry.  Devon from the company states, “We work with construction contractors of all sizes and all trades, both residential and commercial.  A majority of our clients are smaller and focus on residential projects, with 0-5 employees and annual revenues under $5M, although some have 40-50 employees and annual revenue nearing $50M.  We offer books, software, online classes, live classes, and one-on-one business coaching.

We’re a husband-and-wife team.  Michael’s 50+ years of experience in construction is shared in his books and in his classes; he’s a natural teacher who isn’t afraid to tell business owners what they need to hear to improve their business. Devon handles the editing, technology, marketing, and whatever else needs to be done.”

Technologies Used: Devon continued, “Our first website launched in 2000 and was developed by a friend in DreamWeaver.  We published our first email newsletter in June of 2001 using an online service called Topica.  In 2005 a web designer convinced us to start blogging and those blog posts, along with our newsletter articles, are now the core of our WordPress website.

Until last year we operated two separate storefronts; one for our physical and downloadable products, the other for our online classes (streaming videos).  Last summer we consolidated them in a WooCommerce storefront, making life easier for us and less confusing for our clients.  We use SproutVideo to host our class videos, while other videos are hosted on YouTube for SEO purposes.  CampaignMonitor ships our bi-monthly email newsletter.  While we’ve held many two-day classes across the country, we’ve just begun experimenting with live online classes using Livestorm.

This month we transitioned our main website from Drupal to WordPress to better manage the almost 1000 pages of content.  The biggest hurdle was finding the courage to work with the phpMyAdmin panel when needed.

One of our continuing challenges is our market.  Our clients don’t spend their days behind a computer; they’re working on jobs or meeting with clients.  What is intuitive to a serious computer user isn’t always intuitive to them, so we need to make purchasing easy and provide clear info on how to access online videos and downloads after a purchase.”

Advice / Tips: Devon finished, “Unless you have time and money to waste, focus on dependability over price when you’re looking for help.  You’ll spend more time and money fixing problems than it would have cost if you’d hired someone dependable in the first place.

Also, you’re not too old to learn new skills.  I think we’re proof even senior citizens can build and manage their own website.”

Description:  LeoDaniels is a family owned business and a team of diamond and jewelry experts who bring to you the unsurpassed quality and design at the absolute best value.  Chaim from LeoDaniels states, “When shopping with LeoDaniels, you can pamper yourself with affordable rings, necklaces, earrings and bracelets in your price range.  We have a beautiful selection of gold, diamonds, tennis bracelets, bangle bracelets, engagement rings and watches that won’t break the bank.  Our Springs Line offers beautiful sterling silver 14kt gold accented jewelry with genuine gemstones.  You can complete your shopping list with LeoDaniels for your loved ones with quality timeless jewelry that will be cherished for years by you and future generations.

LeoDaniels brings the trust and confidence of the traditional jeweler-customer relationship to you online.  Shopping online for jewelry adds tremendous value via access to more diamonds and jewelry without the overhead price brick and mortar stores incur.  Online shopping is easy (you can browse from the comfort of your couch), all the while knowing you are in trusted hands with LeoDaniels — our 50+ years of diamond manufacturing experience makes it a no-brainer.  From the initial purchase of the rough stones to the cutting into polished diamonds, we bring our expertise and craftsmanship directly to the customer.  To make the decision even easier, we offer free and easy returns to guarantee that you will always get the perfect piece!”

Technologies Used:  Chaim continued, “The online jewelry retail industry, in general, can be extremely complex and challenging.  Many times, if we wanted to streamline one process it will cause us to compromise elsewhere.  At LeoDaniels, our highest priority is to implement scalable and easy-to-use technology that would simultaneously offer our team a simple and straightforward way to use our systems without diminishing user experience.  Our biggest achievement over the past year has been implementing a state-of-the-art inventory management system that is directly integrated into our Magento site and accounting software that allows us to have powerful control over our product catalog and internal processes.  Our inventory system allows us to keep physical inventory low while still offering the customer a very large selection of products by using a “Make To Order” manufacturing process thereby enabling us to only keep raw materials in stock.  We also implemented software that connects to third party marketplaces like Amazon and eBay that offers us access to a considerably larger customer base.

Since we deal in such high-value transactions, privacy and security are of greatest importance.  Therefore, we have partnered with industry leaders to keep our company data, customer data, and transactions completely safe.  Our website uses GeoTrust SSL certification that utilizes secure encryption to ensure complete privacy for our customers.”

Advice / Tips:  Chaim finished, “While technology and software make processes more efficient, there is still no substitution for putting in the man-hours.  At LeoDaniels, we try to keep every employee invested in the company by rewarding them with a rev share based on quarter over quarter growth.”

Description:  Toboa Energy resources LLC is a reseller and distributor for residential and commercial applications currently serving four major industry groups.  The industries served are fluid handling that offers pumps, filtration, steam handling, process valves, tanks and supporting parts.  Solar, offering panels, mounts, inverters, batteries, controllers, converters, switches, power supplies and solar home related products.  Power Generation offering generators, transfer switches, lighting, power packs and tap boxes.  Heat Transfer offering heat exchangers, chillers, valves and cooling towers.

Top industry brands such as Sterlco, ASCO, Winco, Pentair, Watts, Wykomar, Thermal Transfer, Exeltech, Solartech Power, MK Battery and dozens more.  Toboa Energy Resources LLC was founded in 2007 and mainly sells internet direct with huge savings on industrial products.  We are GSA, SAM’s and a small woman owned and operated business focused mainly on great companies and made in America products.

Technologies Used:  Creating an internet business seems easy but the reality is it’s all business whether internet direct or shop keeper it requires extreme dedication an many extra hours every day just to operate.  The biggest obstacles we face are of course internet reliability, cost control, shipping and getting products in front of clients.  Huge sums of money can be spent on Google adwords, SEO and other costly marketing endeavors but for us we found that basic things like web platform up time, virus prevention, content management, were all things that were difficult when we began.  Believe it or not, just to find a web host that understood what is needed and have professionals ready to answer questions was a big obstacle and a huge deal breaker.  Service providers in foreign countries were hard to understand and did not have business urgency.

We began by using a very basic program “Webpage Maker” but found it not to be detailed enough and eventually expanded to Woo Commerce.  Staying ranked is a huge challenge, large corporations with endless marketing budgets and staff easily keep top internet sites operating.  I think every small business really needs a few basic things:

• Good hosting support with a secure platform and high up time.
• Up to date GeoTrust certificates
• Current platform based managed plugins
• Retrievable usage data including site up time with monitoring
• Multi scalable email system for growth.

Advice / Tips:  The best advice I could give someone in business is go with companies that work and give reliable solid performance.  Do not let cost be the driving factor but instead quality, accessibility, knowledge first then cost.  You are or will be in business for many years and you as a developer or owner need to focus on things that make you money not on things that cost you money.  What I mean by this is that your fixed costs are rarely the reason businesses fail. Businesses fail because the leadership does not pay attention to what makes them the money or how it needs to be structured so that they can spend their $200/hour time on new clients, new potential vendors, markets and growth.

Internet is cheap when compared to hiring salesmen, paying salaries, insurance, brick and mortar.  Lets say you spend 26 weeks building your website, getting products setup hiring an adwords company, buying computers, desks, maybe investing in inventory if needed.  Now think about what happens when everything goes perfect! Nice! Now think about your website crashing, you just lost your platform data, your site is slow, your site is intermittent, and to top it all off your site is hosted in the Philippines! Been there, done that.  It doesn’t pay.  This is how we ended up with LexiConn and believe me when I tell you everyone wants to host our site.  I get calls from all sorts of internet companies saying they will do this and be that but I know through experience that it’s rare to find good service.  Stick with the best platform service provider you can find.

One more thing and this is extremely valid.  YOUR website should always be within your control.  In other words your SEO company should not control your server, you should.  The reason for this is purely business, if you fall out of love with your web designer, or your seo guy or your adwords company and want to change them its is a lot less messy not to ask them for your website back!  Just saying it happens every day.  Keep your hosted site in the hands of a neutral host that will look out for your interests.  I have called LexiConn on many occasions and asked about usage, problems, and when things go wrong you need someone outside of the circle to give objective views.

Description:  WD Music Products, Inc. is a full-service stringed instrument parts supplier with distribution and manufacturing facilities across the globe.  Ryan from WD states, “WD is known as a leading industry supplier and maintains relationships with manufacturers and distributors such as Fender® Custom Shop, Gibson® Custom Shop, Ernie Ball®, Peavey®, G & L®, Musicians Friend®, St. Louis Music®, Harris Teller®, Yorkville Sound®, Stewart MacDonald®, and more.  In addition to serving the industry’s leading brands, WD distributes parts to thousands of smaller scale builders and repair shops as well as direct to retail consumers.  Our flagship brand WD Custom Pickguards, founded in 1978, began as a small basement shop in the home of President and Vice President Wendy and Larry Davis.  As the demand for related products grew over the next 40+ years, WD transformed from an aftermarket pickguards manufacturer to an industry household name.”

Technologies Used:  Ryan continued, “Wdmusic.com serves as a central hub for all WD’s customers.  Both B2B and B2C customers can register and create an account at wdmusic.com.  B2B customers, once approved through a custom application process, gain access to industry pricing powered by ShopSite’s variable pricing feature.

WDmusic.com has operated on the ShopSite platform for over ten years.  Once we began working with a certified ShopSite developer (Merchant Corner) in late 2016 we truly began to take full advantage of the platform.  After carefully developing custom logic to account for decades of customer requests, a complete revision of our product database, complete site redesign, and addition of countless quality-of-life improvements we successfully launched the “new” WDmusic.com in late December of 2018.

Since the launch of our “new” store we have seen an incredible increase in site visits and conversions, as well as a considerable uptick in customer satisfaction, feedback, and retention.  Most recently we have upgraded to the ShopSite Enterprise platform.  The switch to enterprise has vastly improved the shopping cart experience from a Merchant standpoint.  Many changes to products and pages no longer require a publish or regeneration process, only to “save” changes.  With a product database exceeding 42,000 items (and growing) this change alone has saved countless hours for our web department.”

Advice / Tips:  Ryan finished, “The best advice we can give, regardless of your shopping cart platform, is to seek out a quality certified developer specializing in your platform.  While most shopping cart platforms contain great “out-of-box” features, we have found the true power in Ecommerce hinges on custom developments that make the platform work best for you and your customers.  Due to our niche industry and unique business model as both a B2B and B2C supplier we have developed several customizations that now we simply cannot live without.”

Description: Luxor, an EBSCO Company, is an industry leader in developing furniture solutions that foster a more collaborative, functional and productive work environment.  Dustin from Luxor states, “Our extensive range of products includes Stand Up Desks that help keep employees focused, Standing Desk Converters that add new life to old office spaces, Mobile Charging Carts that meet the learning needs of today’s classrooms, as well as Dry Erase Boards that invite innovation, AV Carts, Utility Carts and much more.  All of our products are designed to meet the needs of the modern work space while priced to meet the realities of an increasingly competitive marketplace.  And of course, the quality of a product is only as good as the service that supports it.  Luxor is proud to be recognized for our exceptional customer service.  Fast, friendly and experienced, our dedicated team is ready to meet your business needs.”

Technologies Used: He continued, “After years of running the Luxor website on a rudimentary, home-brewed store front, we took the plunge to elevate our website offering to our dealers and users in general.  Even though Luxor is not an ecommerce shop, we chose to use Magento 2 as the platform to represent our products in case a time came where we offered checkout abilities to our dealers.

With this transition to Magento, we also implemented a custom Image Download module that allows our dealers and customer support to quickly search, find and package product images for use on other websites or promotional materials.

Having at least some form of a CMS (Content Management System) was also a huge help.  Before this move to Magento, adding a product to the store front required accessing the database, finding the proper table and manually creating a new row for the new product. Doing it this way, was not only a bit tedious, but also terrible practice.  Now, with Magento, all of our Marketing team can easily and safely update/add products, create and edit CMS pages, and much more.

For privacy we partner with TRUSTe to ensure we meet the requirements, policies, and practices to meet EU-US Privacy Shield and/or Swiss-US Privacy Shield.”

Description: Cool Bling Jewelry features an online catalog of high quality unique jewelry pieces at reasonable prices.  Site owner Terrel Johnson revealed, “I really like southwestern jewelry and started collecting these items for several years.  Over the years, I discovered many interesting facts about this jewelry.  For example, turquoise has been known for its healing properties and has been used for centuries.  I started getting other jewelry and have even acquired some pieces from the Holy land that come with a certificate of authenticity.

This passion led me to start an online jewelry store and I began by searching for a good web designer.  I was lucky enough to find Fox Web Design, one of the best.  These talented folks have made me a great website!  I have found a reliable jewelry wholesaler, someone to handle media, and have a functional attractive website. I am on my way to fulfill my dreams and I couldn’t be any happier with my decisions.”

Technologies Used: Johnson goes on to say, “My budget was not large and I wanted the site built quickly.  Fox Web Design suggested using WordPress and WooCommerce. They took care of everything for me and found that LexiConn’s WooCommerce hosting plan was perfect. They set up my SSL certificate and integrated PayPal and my Square account allowing me to accept credit cards.  In addition, WP All Import Pro was used to import all of the products from our supplier and LexiConn set up a cron job to update the inventory daily.”

Description: Chris from Quinn Violins states, “I started Quinn Violins in my bedroom over thirty years ago in 1986, while still in high school.  The business began by offering strings and accessories for instruments like violin, viola, cello, and bass.  I soon opened a small brick-and-mortar shop in downtown Minneapolis.  There I expanded to provide instrument repair services, rentals, and sales.

In the late 1990’s I retooled for Internet sales and began beta testing ShopSite.  And in 1998, a full three years ahead of the industry-leading retailers, quinnviolins.com launched as a secure e-commerce platform. It was a significant disruption to the music products industry, and it allowed us to capture a significant market share with no marketing budget.

Now we have six employees and 4,500 square feet of showroom, repair, and performance space.  We’ve expanded into fretted instruments like guitar, mandolin, ukulele, banjo, and related products.  This new division is “Fret Central” and will soon spin off into its own domain and site, so we’re well-positioned for this next round of growth.

You can watch a brief video about us here:

https://youtu.be/AkH23bjlFUA

The Minneapolis Star Tribune recently covered our Fret Central expansion here:

http://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-based-quinn-violins-strikes-chord-with-guitar-section/494012311/

Technologies Used: Chris continued, “The foundation of quinnviolins.com is on ShopSite Pro, which gives us many of the features we need as an online store.  We use MySQL for vendor inventory data and for managing a mailing list of professional musicians who use a special coupon code.  Active Campaign powers our email list.  We have thousands of subscribers and they’re particularly responsive to our string promotions.  Google Product Feed is a new tool for us, launched with our website revamp in 2018.  I recently completed the SEO part of that project and it currently includes about a third of our products.  We are not planning to budget for Google AdWords, because of the high cost, and lack of clarity regarding the value in generating additional revenue.

Security is important to us, so we use GeoTrust to protect user data and website pages.

We also use Comm100 to provide value to our website visitors.  For example, when a customer is on a product page with big-ticket items, we reach out and tell them about current promotions that aren’t listed on the site.  This ensures they get the lowest price on the products they’re interested in.  Many are just shopping, but when they’re ready to buy they’ll come back knowing that we have a discount offer waiting for them.”

Advice / Tips: Chris finished, “Until a few years ago, our website was struggling with legacy technical issues.  We had old static HTML pages with embedded product order links.  The site wasn’t mobile-friendly, it was cumbersome to manage, and prices needed manual updating on hundreds of pages.

To help bring the site up-to-date, we asked LexiConn to recommend ShopSite developers to us.  We chose David Pringle of Vortex Web Design.  David was able to overcome technical challenges other developers said would be impossible. He also empowered us to do the heavy lifting of building hundreds of pages by using his templates.  This saved us tremendous amounts of time and money.  I’d recommend David to any ShopSite store looking for skilled yet affordable help.

You know, in the music products world, we learned a long time ago not to ignore the culture in which our customers live and work.  Selling music products requires a connection to the market that honors and supports what’s important to customers.  These are not just products.  We give people a reason to buy from us because we communicate our sincere belief that Quinn Violins provides a valuable and needed role in the arts community.”