An online play leads to offline success

Planning to build on its previous success in using online sales to place its product in retail stores, PureLip.com is getting ready to introduce another over-the- counter remedy by selling it on its web site. PureLip markets a cold sore remedy devised by its 29-year-old founder Robert Moffitt. Moffitt understood the difficulty of persuading drugstore chains to stock unknown items, so he launched a web site to sell the product, then encouraged satisfied customers to send e-mails from PureLip.com to the retail buyers of drug chains. PureLip has the buyers’ e-mail addresses at its site.

Today, 8,700 drugstores, including outlets of Walgreen’s, Osco and Sav-On, stock the Pure Lip product. The company spent $1 million in private investments in developing the product and has sold $1.2 million worth of product. Among its marketing tactics was to offer $2 rebates to customers who bought PureLip at retail stores. Pure Lip is hoping its new product will find similar success. "The burden of proof is on us to show that our product is better than another product," Moffitt says. "One thing we can do is use the drugstore e-mail campaign to establish the viability of a new product."