Binoculars.com Posts Record 123 Percent Growth in 2003 - Online Retailer Starts 2004 on Pace, Reveals Challenges of Change

Binoculars.com achieved 123 percent sales growth in 2003 with more than $6 million in total sales. Showing no signs of slowing up, the online retailer opened the New Year with 130 percent growth in Jan/Feb 2004 as compared with Jan/Feb 2003.

DULUTH, MN (PRWEB) March 4, 2004 -- Binoculars.com achieved 123 percent sales growth in 2003 with more than $6 million in total sales. Showing no signs of slowing up, the online retailer opened the New Year with 130 percent growth in Jan/Feb 2004 as compared with Jan/Feb 2003.

Surging sales could be attributed to a variety of factors, including expanded marketing efforts and the proven accountability of those efforts.

A good deal of our marketing success rests with our presence at the forefront of high profile search engines," said Jonathan Thralow, Director of Marketing and Technology. But its more than that. We continuously test our marketing efforts and use only what works."

Growth has come fast and furiously, yet success has brought its share of growing pains. The way the business is dealing with the adversity of rapid change reflects part of why Binoculars.com continues to soar ahead.

This kind of sales growth does not occur without its share of challenges," said Thralow. During the holiday season especially, we had to quickly adapt to overcome issues of server instability, inventory allocation and adequate staffing."

Technology: meeting demand
Server instability posed the largest and most immediate problem during the holiday shopping rush, as traffic counts on the companys Web server grew from 5,000 to 50,000 people per day.

Our server was prepared for 5,000 -- not 50,000 -- visitors. The fact that it handled such a massive influx is a tribute to its stability," Thralow said. That said, theres no doubt that we experienced instability at times, and that may have compromised the customers experience."

Binoculars.com is addressing the problem by rebuilding the core of its entire web site in 2004. In seeking to handle server loads and spikes, the IT department is considering a migration to a Linux OS and Apache web server from Microsoft SQL and ASP.

Inventory: finding balance
Lack of inventory, and allocating inventory too heavily toward bestsellers, was the second largest issue that restricted the companys sales last year.

We learned a lot after posting inventory status as an online feature early in 2003," Thralow said. People tend to order products they know we have in stock, which we suspected. But we discovered that our honesty also hurt us, as customers actually order more from a Web site that does not list inventory status at all -- rather than displaying not in stock" with an estimated shipping time.

This was extremely disappointing, because it meant that competitors that actually provided customers less information were taking the sale from us. While this might lead us to conclude we should only show the status of in-stock items, we are justifying continuing to show true inventory status on the long term bet that withholding information will catch up to competitors and create a more fanatical following for us," Thralow said.

Allocating inventory differently helped address the problem, but it also created additional challenges. Because the company began stocking a wider range of products, inventory carrying costs rose and the amount of physical warehouse space declined.

Weve moved our location five, and now were running out of room again," Thralow said. We are tired of moving: its a big, expensive disruption. Now were looking at purchasing six acres of land and constructing a building that will allow us to expand our warehouse when needed."

Employees: morale and retention
Its not only the building and machines that are stressed by intensive growth; people are too. Binoculars.com added four new employees in 2003, bringing the total to 21. At the same time, advancements in technology allowed the company to streamline operations for better efficiency -- helping handle a product load that multiplied to 3,000 times what it had been in 2002.

Growth has put added pressure on each person to do his or her best," Thralow said. So weve devised non-traditional ways to boost morale. Once in a while, when we reach a particular goal or milestone, we provide the staff with their favorite beverages toward the end of a shift. For instance, when we had our first 1,000-package day, everyone was needed to pull an overtime shift. The more festive atmosphere made the last couple hours feel like a party rather than overtime -- and people now look back at the past holiday season with a certain fondness rather than a feeling of being purely overwhelmed.

The approach has not cost the company much and the morale is strong," he said. This can be seen in the fact that Binoculars.com did not lose a single employee in the past year."

Shipping: pitching in to get it out
The exponential growth clearly effected the shipping department, which faced a labor shortage during the holiday rush. For many of the staff, from the CEO to tech support, that meant rotating into shipping during the holidays.

When you are shipping out 1,000 packages a day with only two full-time shippers, the rest of the staff has to pick up slack -- myself included," Thralow said. If we cannot get all the products out the door that were ordered that day, we sure dont need more marketing at the moment. Marketing had better help out in shipping!"

The downfall, Thralow pointed out, was that a lack of training and inexperience resulted in more error, including an increase in incomplete orders. Despite this, the overall number of errors were reduced from previous holiday seasons due to technologies that aim to minimize or eliminate human error altogether.

Moving forward into 2004, Binoculars.com is taking steps to correct the problems of 2003 while anticipating continued growth. Technological changes are a top priority, as are concerns of employee morale and shipping efficiencies. Amid the changes, Binoculars.com hopes to be able to transition to new heights in the online retail market.

Binoculars.com --
Binoculars.com is the online worlds comprehensive source for binoculars, offering one of the largest selections of products, as well as product reviews, rankings and consumer tutorials. Binoculars.com is a division of Thralow Inc., a Duluth, Minn.-based company that owns and operates 12 e-commerce businesses, including: Telescopes.com, Peepers.com, Pans.com and Eyewear.com. Duluth is located in northeastern Minnesota, where scenic views of Lake Superior and surrounding boreal forests provide an ideal testing ground for an emerging optics company.

Contact:
Jon Thralow, Thralow Inc.
218-625-2002
jthralow@thralow.com

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