The Grill Store serves up a major expansion into online mass merchandise
A Baton Rouge, LA, e-commerce entrepreneur has major ambitions to become the next big online mass merchandise player and take on other category leaders such as Overstock.com.
In April, The Grill Store and More, which operates BBQGuys.com, will launch ShoppersChoice.com, a mass merchandise site that plans to carry more than 2 million SKUs in major categories such as apparel and accessories, automotive, baby, consumer electronics, entertainment, for the home, gifts, flowers, health and beauty, home improvement, pets and toys. The automotive portal, for example, will carry more than 30,000 SKUs.
Today, the BBQGuys.com and its related sites do about $5.4 million in total sales, up 145% from $2.2 million in sales in 2003. But CEO Michael Hackley says he is putting a major undisclosed financial stake into the launch of ShoppersChoice.com with the intention of building annual web sales to around $50 million. “We want to build a bigger company and be a player,” Hackley says.
Plans for ShoppersChoice have been under development for about a year. Impressed by the growth of sites such as Overstock.com, which recorded total 2004 sales of $541.4 million, Hackley sees room for opportunity in the category.
To differentiate from others, Hackley says ShoppersChoice will include several value-added services such as live chat, the ability to accept e-checks and arrange financing. The new site is also building affiliate and other marketing arrangements with Amazon.com and Shop.com. “Over the holidays we began testing items that we will potentially carry on ShoppersChoice on Shop.com and the response was 1,500 to 1,600 orders per day,” Hackley says. “Based on that type of response we think the market and online customers will accept ShoppersChoice.”
Hackley believes that other competitors may rely too heavily on affiliate marketing. As another differentiator, ShoppersChoice will rely on effective web search, which Hackley credits with helping The Grill Store and More double its total annual e-commerce revenue.
“We have grown as much as we can in the grill space and now it’s the time to expand,” he says.
Most of the development for building ShoppersChoice is being handled internally, but the analytics program will be based on a program from Fireclick, now a unit of Digital River Inc.
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