Darrell Hacker – 2dSecurity.com

Darrell Hacker of Cincinnati, Ohio didn’t own a business or website of any kind. He was working at a help desk answering customer questions. He had a fair amount of computer knowledge because the company he worked for was in the computer industry.

It probably wouldn’t be fair to say Darrell was dissatisfied but as he looked ahead into his future he, like a lot of us, worried about what would happen after he retired.

It was about that time that Darrell got an invitation to a StoresOnline seminar. He decided it couldn’t hurt to go check it out. Besides, he’d get a free day planner out of it.

Darrell says he got good information at the seminar. “It was a lot to handle,” he said. “There’s just so much information to take in and it’s a lot of money to spend at once.” He decided to buy the 6-site package and do whatever it took to make it work.

“I didn’t realize at the time how much work it would take,” said Darrell, “but I’m glad I did it.”

Darrell said deciding what products to sell online was one of the most difficult parts for him just because there are so many products from which to choose. It took him about six months to make his decision. Once he started building his website it only took him about a month and a half to publish.

“It was a little confusing at first,” he said, “but the more I worked on it, the more I learned and the easier it became.” He learned all he could from the online tutorials and whenever he got stuck he just contacted customer support.

“StoresOnline customer support was excellent,” Darrell said. He used both phone and chat support, depending on what time of day or night he was working on his website.

Darrell says he made some missteps in marketing and it took a long time to get his first order; about a year. Once they started doing things right, they started getting orders

“It was exciting when orders started to trickle in. At Christmas time we started getting more orders and after that all our marketing efforts started paying off.” His flow of orders started getting bigger and steadier.

Darrell’s websites get about 80 hits a day, with a conversion rate of about 3 percent.

Marketing has been Darrell’s biggest challenge. “There are so many things to do but you just have to jump in someplace and start working on it,” said Darrell. He spends about eight hours a week on marketing and four hours a week on other aspects of the business. He keeps his regular nine-to-five job for now and grows his online business in preparation for the day he decides to retire altogether from the nine-to-five life.

He doesn’t need customer support much now but in the building phase, he used it quite a lot. They were always able to straighten out his problems.

Darrell is currently running four of the six StoresOnline websites he bought: www.2dsecurity.com, www.stunguns-usa.com, www.Buypepperspray.ws, and www.diyselfdefense.com. All his websites sell personal and home security products.

Darrell’s websites regularly rank on page one of Google for several of his products. It took a lot of SEO, link-building, and about two years to get there. What’s worked best for him has been back-links. “They’re the key to getting good rank with Google,” Darrell said.

“If I hadn’t found StoresOnline I probably wouldn’t have a business today,” said Darrell. “We have more income. That’s a big plus. We have more time. It just feels good to own a business. There are tax advantages. And seeing the orders come in every day is just huge.”