Using StoresOnline in the Vinyl Repair Industry

Thad Kresho of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania taught music for 13 years before he started his own vinyl repair company. After a few years of running that business on his own, the makers of the repair products he used asked him if he’d teach others how to use their products. Eventually, that part of his business grew into a distributorship of vinyl and leather repair products for independent technicians, as he had been. A few years ago, he found he didn’t need to do any more actual repair work because his distributorship was taking all his time and it was more profitable, with less travel involved. He developed some great relationships with manufacturers and brought several unique products onto his line.

That was when he built his first website. His distributorship was going so well, it was natural for him to want to be able to sell on the Internet. He thought it would be a good way to find new customers and to better serve his current customers.

Thad was wrong. The platform he used to build that first website was too limiting. Thad sold several different container sizes of many of his products and he needed to be able to offer them all on his website. Additionally, his website wasn’t getting any new traffic. It was time to try something else.

Try, Try Again

Thad got the mailer from StoresOnline at just the right time. He went to the Preview Conference and decided to go to the Training Workshop two weeks later. After the Preview Conference, he went home and discussed it with his wife. Together, they decided that the Training Workshop was something they both should see.

The presentation they saw at the Training Workshop really hit home for both of them. Because of the number of products they needed to sell and the fact that they wanted to be able to get top search rankings, they bought the six-site package.

“I was confident I could figure out how to do it because I’d done a website before and because I’ve been figuring out how to do things my whole life,” said Thad. “I’ve never had any business training but I’ve been self-employed for about 35 years now.”

This time Thad was right. It only took him three weeks to get his first site up and running, though he stayed up until 2 a.m. most nights doing it. He also spent a fair amount of time on the StoresOnline help chat line. He added his other five sites gradually, later on.

Getting Traffic

One of the things Thad wanted most from his association with StoresOnline was to know how to get traffic to his website. He found the knowledge he was looking for in the Merchant Services section of his StoresOnline software.

Thad used the reverse search tool heavily to do his keyword research and made sure those keywords appeared several times on his website. Then, because organic search measures take time to kick in, he started doing pay-per-click campaigns on both Google and Yahoo.

“I know there are so many other things I could be doing to increase traffic even more,” Thad said. “It’s just that we’re already getting so many orders from it now that it seems less important.”

Because he started his pay-per-click campaigns so quickly once his site was up and running, Thad only had to wait a day or two before he had his first order.

Winds of Change

Thad got all six of his sites live. They’re all related to the same business and one of them is nothing but how-to videos Thad learned to shoot and edit himself. He uses the videos to teach folks how to use the products he sells.

Thad is an entrepreneur at heart. Because of the great building and marketing he did for his website, he found someone who wanted to buy his whole business in the spring of 2010. VinylPro.com and its five sister sites still operate but they now have a new owner. Now that Thad has sold that business he’s purchased a new website from StoresOnline and is beginning his latest venture: power tools.