What do y'all think of this biz. idea?

Dennis,

It's morning now, and I've woken up thinking, "Why in the heck would I want to get involved in a business that isn't a 'passion'?"

Doh!

As for the ad specialties, no doubt it's a good business. I'm curious about two aspects of your biz:

#1: It's not an autopilot business, is it? What I mean is, it requires customer interaction, right?

#2: It seems to be highly competitive. How are you getting visitors to your site?

Thanks,
Adam.


Get your dog to listen to you.... click here....

Adam,

#1, yes it's a competitive business, when you are trying to get your foot in the door. However, with Kaeser and Blair, Inc, being one of the 20 largest distributors in the industry (out of 17,000+ members in the Advertising Specialty Institute + thousands of non-members), they are one of the most competitive companies in the industry.

Example: Bic Clic Stic list price is 83 cents for 300 imprinted - See www.bicgraphic.com.

K & B's everyday price with the same bic quality and imprint is 43 cents. The first quarter K & B has them on sale for 33 cents each.

Many other examples of 20% to 50% off factory list price.

Once you have the customers buying from you, it becomes less competitive in many cases. I have loyal clients who have been buying from me for 12 to 18 years.

As for traffic, you have the usual choices of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to get high placements, paying for review/inclusion in Yahoo, Google, Looksmart, etc, as well as the PayPerClick traffic generators.

Slower version - get lots of other sites linking to yours, and posting on various forums and boards to attract visitors.

I get a couple new customers most every week, but the primary business is for customers locally and across the US who want to use my site for research, etc.

A lot of my current traffic appears to be people who are searching the dealership opportunity, which most competitors can't touch as to the value to either rookies or existing distributors who want to work it a smarter way.

Several K & B dealers are selling strictly online, and a couple are doing over $250,000 annualy via the internet.

Dennis Bevers