Improvement Direct opens another niche site
Improvement Direct continues to look for new niches in the home improvement space.
The online retailer’s newest launch is iTankless.com, an e-commerce site that sells gas and electric tankless water heaters. There are 11 million water heaters bought in the United States each year and nine million of those units are replacements, according to Improvement Direct. "We see this as a tremendous opportunity for tankless solutions," says Jordan Wilcox, project manager at iTankless.com. The new web store will carry 884 SKUs.
ITankless.com features a buying guide, a water-capacity calculator, free shipping on orders over $99, and alternative forms of payment such as 90 days same as cash.
Improvement Direct, No. 191 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide to Retail Web Sites, operates 17 online home improvement stores. “We are interested in niche sites because by focusing efforts you can effectively create an attractive site tailored to a specific product line and provide the customer with an abundance of information,” Wilcox says.
Improvement Direct expects its web sales to total about $60 million in 2006, an increase of 71.4% from $35 million in e-commerce sales in 2005.
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