Brian Feeny was ready to do something he loved. A former business process analyst for an insurance company, he yearned for more.
“I really wasn’t happy at my job,” Feeny says. “I started an online store on the side called HeirloomGift.com, but I wasn’t making enough off of it to replace my income.”
Feeny, a Pittsburgh native, was a diehard sports fan, so it made sense for him to venture into the sports memorabilia business. He started CollegeFanfare.com, an online apparel and memorabilia store, and soon found success.
“Six weeks into launching the store, I was able to quit my job,” he says. “It’s been very rewarding, but it took some work to make it happen.”
Building the Store
Feeny designed the first incarnation of CollegeFanfare.com himself, utilizing
the design tools provided by Yahoo! Merchant Solutions and incorporating some
images he created using Adobe Photoshop.
“The first draft I did of the site was fairly straightforward,” he says. “The tools that Yahoo! provided made it easy to build and get online.”
As business increased, Feeny wanted to give the site a more polished look, so he hired Solid Cactus to help with a redesign.
“After the first Christmas, our business had really grown, so I wanted the site to grow with it. Solid Cactus came in and helped me integrate the new design with the Yahoo! Store, and it turned out really well.”
As CollegeFanfare.com grew and became more successful, Feeny expanded the site to SportsFanfare.com, selling apparel and collectibles for NASCAR, NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB teams.
“After the first site took off, expansion seemed like a good idea,”
Feeny says. “We used the same template for the new site and tweaked it
to reflect the changes.”
What Works: Good Product Selection and Easy Navigation
As Feeny learned, it’s important for online retailers to offer a wide selection
of products. The more variety you can offer your customers, the more likely
they are to make a purchase.
“When we first started, we only had about 4,000 products,” Feeny says, “and our biggest selling item was blankets. When we started to add more products, we not only sold more of those, but our number of blanket sales increased.”
“When you offer a wide variety of products, customers feel comfortable doing business with you,” he says. “It lends a sense of professionalism and credibility to your business, so they feel better about spending their money with you.”
Once you provide the selection, you have to make it easy for your customers to find what they’re looking for. The easier it is for customers to find the product, the more likely they’ll be to make a purchase. Feeny incorporates navigation by sport and team on the left-hand side of the site’s home page.
“Once the customer selects the sport, he can click the drop-down menu to find
the team he wants, select it, and is then directed to a page that has every
product we carry for that particular team.”
Online Marketing: Affiliate Programs, Comparison-Shopping Sites, and Paid
Search
A well-designed site with quality products isn’t profitable if no one can find
it. Feeny uses the following online marketing techniques to put Sportsfanfare.com
on the screens of as many potential customers as possible.
Paid Search. Feeny uses Yahoo! Search Marketing and Google’s AdWords for paid search.
“We use the tools on both platforms to select and bid on our keywords,” he says. “So far it’s worked well for us.”
It’s important for small business owners to make sure they’re getting a return on their investment when using paid search.
“My advice to other small business owners is to make sure they’re getting a favorable return on their paid search investment,” Feeny says. “A lot of people get caught up in the game of achieving a number-one search results ranking. But if you’re not making money off of it, it’s a bad formula. It’s important to figure out what the average customer spends, and then determine your paid search accordingly.”
Affiliate Marketing. Feeney says affiliate marketing programs are another effective way for small business owners to generate online revenue.
“We have about 1,400 affiliates, and they account for 20 percent of our traffic,” he says. “Finding the right sites to partner with is probably the most important part of that process. You want to find partner sites that your target customers will visit, so doing some research on the front end will help.”
Comparison-Shopping Sites. Using comparison-shopping sites, or product search marketing, is another way for small businesses to generate more sales.
“Comparison shopping sites probably account for 10 percent of our business, and they’re pretty easy to use,” Feeny says. “We use Yahoo! Shopping and Froogle (Google’s shopping site), and we’re able to upload our entire product catalog within a few minutes. It’s a good way to get your products in front of customers who ordinarily would not have found your site.”
The Results
Sportsfanfare.com has over 15,000 visitors per day and sells more than 40,000
products for every major professional and college sports team.
“I think that our customers can find almost any item they want for their favorite
teams on our site,” Feeny says. “I’m really pleased with our growth. It just
shows that being diligent and following a plan can pay off when it comes to
growing your business online.”