Paul and Sharron Savoie enjoy visiting Florida.  Hailing from Shediac, New Brunswick Canada, they enjoy getting away during the winter and taking their business with them. 

It wasn’t always so easy, though.  For two decades, Paul owned and operated vending machines, soda machines, and peanut machines, and set up novelty kiosks in shopping malls.  “At one time, I used to have a store year round, but things got more competitive with the Costcos and the Wal-Marts,” Paul says.  “Now we just go in to the mall when it’s profitable, usually the Christmas season.”   

Sharron also kept herself busy.  “I worked at our hospital for twenty years,” she says, “and then I semi-retired…I worked in the Cardiology/Neurology department.”  After leaving full-time work at the hospital, Sharron got into an unsuccessful network marketing program.  “I tried to do something, you know, to keep your mind going, not just sit at home.”

Paul was also feeling the wear of operating his kiosks.  “Especially around Christmas, we lose a lot from shoplifting,” Paul says.  “It’s hard to get staff,” Sharron adds.  “Even just this past Christmas, we had trouble getting staff to work.  We can’t be there all the time.”

When Paul and Sharron received an invitation to the 90-minute StoresOnline preview, they had been looking into an Online merchant opportunity for some time.  “It really piqued my interest,” Paul says.  So he and Sharron signed up for the all-day workshop, driving two and a half hours to get there.  What impressed Sharron the most was the training.  “They told us they’d give us all the tools,” Sharron says.  “They made us realize that it was attainable, that we could do it.”

“I had about 20 years of retailing,” Paul adds, “and I’ve seen a lot of people that have no retail experience at all, and they were doing it.  If they can do it, you know, I should have a little edge over them.” 

Paul and Sharron bought six website licenses, then searched for products on a popular wholesaler listing program that he heard about at the workshop.  When Paul couldn’t find a shipper for his original product idea, he decided to sell pet supplies.  “Everybody has pets,” Sharron says.  “Two or three of them, actually.  We have pets and love them.”

Three months later, the Savoies published petfenceworld.com.  “I had dial up Internet,” Sharron admits.  “I did not have high speed Internet when I started building the first site.  So you can imagine.”   It took quite some time to put the first 400 products on the site. 

While Paul did most of the product research, Sharron created the website.  “Even though I used the computer at work, it was only to go in and book in my patients or something.  I was quite scared in the beginning,” Sharron says.  “Now we race each other to the computer in the morning, quite a few times in the day, actually, to see if we got orders.”

Those orders came quickly after Paul and Sharron published the website.  As they’ve improved their site, their sales have jumped to an average of $1,000 a week.  “It could be more, it could be less,” Sharron says.  “We’ve had over $1,100 just that one day on…four orders.”

With the income from their site, the Savoies have been able to buy new computer equipment, along with high speed Internet, which made building the site much easier.   Now, even on their trips to the states, they take their computers with them and check their orders.  “I take it very serious,” Sharron says.  “When I get an order, I want to look out after it immediately and let my customers know.”

“There are a lot of people that are surprised,” Paul says.  He mentions one of his friends who is also in the retail business.  “He’s always asking me, ‘how’s it going?’ And I told him about last week, we had four sales in one afternoon.  It came up to near $1,200.  He couldn’t get over it.”

Indeed, Paul’s friend really brought the difference home.  “They have a warehouse, and they have to have staff, and the overhead, and then the rent,” Paul says.  “They have to be there from 8:00 to 5:00, five days a week.”  That’s a far cry from running your business on vacation. 

Visit Paul and Sharron’s sites:

www.petfenceworld.com
www.protechcarcovers.com

*Testimonial results are not typical and your individual results will vary. Your success depends on having the right price, product, and marketing efforts.