ToolKing.com is counting on its 27 years of relationships with tool manufacturers and suppliers to help it become an online superstore. ToolKing.com, No. 140 in the Top 400 Guide to Retail Web Sites, carries about 12,000 SKUs in its web inventory, but within 18 months expects to carry as many as 200,000 products.
The company, which also operates a single store in Colorado, has sold online since 2001 when it began selling on eBay. Now the company is revamping its e-commerce site with a new internally designed and maintained Microsoft .Net platform and expanding its product line-up, says founder and managing director Donald Cohen.
In addition to adding 3,000 products to its warehouse operation and arranging new drop shipping agreements with manufacturers such as Eclipse and Qualcraft, ToolKing.com is about to develop a new private label line of tools, Cohen says.
The new web site features faster site search, better use of images and a product comparison application that lets visitors and customers compare multiple products on the same page. Other new site features include new payment alternatives with Western Union and Bill Me Later and an updated shopping cart.
“We want to be among the category killers in the online tool space,” Cohen says. For 2005, ToolKing.com sales will be up about 35% year over year to about $16 million, he says.
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