Headsets.com plugs into Canada and affiliate marketing

With a new Canadian web site and a growing customer base, Headsets.com Inc. is on track to generate web sales of about $10 million in 2005, says founder and CEO Mike Faith.

Headsets, No. 362 in the Internet Retailer Top 400 Guide to Retail Web Sites, specializes in the sale and support of telephone headsets, telephones and audio conferencing equipment with its own private label brand and from manufacturers such as Plantronics and GN Netcom.

Headsets is a direct marketing company with about two-thirds of its revenue coming from telephone sales, Faith says. But to generate more web traffic from a base of more than 150,000 customers, Headsets.com earlier this year opened a separate online store in Canada. The company is also just launching its first affiliate marketing program. The program, which Headsets.com is running using Commission Junction for some services, has so far signed about 20 affiliates. “We are just in the early stages,” Faith says.

For the year, Headsets.com expects sales across all channels to range between $27 million and $30 million and to be between $45 and $50 million in 2006. “The last several years and this year the web has generated about one-third of our sales,” Faith says.

For the remainder of 2005, Faith says Headsets.com will concentrate on growing its Canadian web site, 1800Headsets.ca. The new site is a virtual replica of Headsets.com, but features a currency converter and other slight differences, Faith says. If the new Canadian site meets expectations, Headsets.com could expand to other international markets, including the United Kingdom. “We have the domain names we want and we will see if there is an opportunity,” Faith says. “For the rest of 2005 we will be concentrating on getting Canada right.”