Paul Serra and Adam Topping

www.STBands.com and www.SiliconeWristBandsHQ.com

Adam Topping was managing a video store in Michigan and his friend, Paul Serra, was one of his employees. Each felt he was a budding entrepreneur but neither had yet found the opportunity that would bring them the lifestyle they craved. “I tried all kinds of things to be in business for myself,” laughed Adam. “I once bought a bulk order of laser pointers from eBay and went around and tried to sell them to stores.”

When Adam got the invitation to the StoresOnline Preview he was already in the right frame of mind; that of looking for the right opportunity. He convinced his friend, Paul, to go with him. They attended the Workshop a couple of weeks later and bought the StoresOnline Pro Software Suite.

When they made the purchase, neither Paul nor Adam had any idea what they wanted to sell on the internet.

“It was tough,” said Paul. “We battled with that for like three or four months.” They researched and rejected idea after idea before they settled on one they thought would work: custom sweatbands (headbands, wristbands, armbands, etc.).

“When I played guitar in a band, I sometimes wore sweatbands with a logo,” said Paul. “So I started doing some keyword research on them. We started with plain sweatbands and then went to custom. And from there we managed to find a supplier.”

They purchased in late 2007 but didn’t manage to get their website up and running until February of 2008. The marketing technique they’ve used most heavily has been SEO. They say they’ve done a bit of everything but found SEO to be the most productive thing they’ve done for their Web marketing. Recently, they’ve also started using YouTube videos a lot to implement marketing strategies StoresOnline teaches.

The reason they chose StoresOnline is simple: “They were the first ones to give us the idea of doing something online,” said Adam. “Before we got the invitation to the Preview Conference we just didn’t have the vision laid out for us like that.”

Paul and Adam say the other big factor in their achievement with their online business was that the StoresOnline training and StoresOnline web builder simplified the process.

“It’s really very simple,” said Adam. “You just look for the product tab, add your product, set the price, write the selling content for it, and the next thing you know your product is live on the Web.”

They have a second website now but say they’re also still building their first website because they’re constantly working to improve it.

For customer support they use the StoresOnline 24/7 live chat the most. There are two reasons. First, they just find it more convenient sometimes. Second, they like to keep their phone lines open for their customers. At first, they contacted customer support four or five times a day. Now it’s more like once every month or two.

Before Paul and Adam came along, there wasn’t a feature that would allow customers to upload a graphic as part of an order. But because of the custom programming StoresOnline did for STBands.com, now it’s available to all StoresOnline customers. Since those early days in their e-commerce careers, Paul and Adam have moved from Michigan to the sunnier climes of Las Vegas. They both still put in a fair number of hours marketing their websites and serving their customers but they do it from their living room or wherever they choose, as long as it has Internet access.