Web Business casting a wider (Inter)net in today’s economy
Published 4:00 pm Saturday, February 28, 2009
These days it’s common to hear the mantra “shop local,” a credo meant to encourage consumers to support area businesses, especially in today’s tentative economy.
But from a business owner’s point of view, as shoppers spend less money it pays for entrepreneurs to cast a wider net in their quest for revenue.
That means a special kind of net the Internet where a successful Web presence broadens the definition of community to encompass the whole planet. And anyone, whether just around the corner or far away, can be a potential customer.
This month CRBJ talked with a few area business owners who have Web sites to find out why they established one, how it’s working, and whether the investment has paid off.
Astoria Business Equipment Company
Astoria Business Equipment Company in downtown Astoria is an institution in the city’s business community. ABECO has been around since 1949 and owners Roy and Terry Latham have owned the company for the past 19 years.
Customers can buy anything from office supplies to greeting cards to homemade candies inside the homey store on the city’s main thoroughfare. They first instituted a Web site about eight years ago.
The site was created by the couple’s Internet-savvy son, and included a database of products that was managed by a third party company.
And while one might expect ABECO to have lots of online competition from major retailers like Staples and Office Depot, Roy said the firm’s Web site has become a great way to reach out to local customers.
One way is with comparative pricing that busts myths about independent stores vs. national chains.
“There’s always been this perception that small stores are expensive compared to big box alternatives,” he said.
That’s why ABECO subscribed to an independent research service, which browses the sites of similar businesses and compares prices. ABECO uses that information, available to customers via their Web site, to match or beat competitor pricing.
That, and free local delivery the next day, help ABECO maintain an interesting niche using the Web to provide customer service and good deals to local clientele.
ABECO recently upgraded the design of its site, using the services of local Web designer Whole Brain Creative.
Latham said their Internet customer base could expand when the company launches online sales of handcrafted candies from their other company Columbia Chocolates, also linked to the ABECO site. Those products could draw customers from outside the geographic area.
But ABECO’s focus overall will stay local. Latham said earning customer trust and providing excellent service are among his company’s keys to staying competitive, even on the Web.
“As a local provider in town the whole thing here is to be shopping local and keeping your money on the coast, even if you go to the Internet to do it,” he said. “I think there will be more and more of this as we go along.”
M&N Workwear
In the Uniontown District of Astoria is another longtime area business that has seen many trends come and go.
M&N Workwear has been around since 1931, first in Clatskanie, and for the past 16 years in Astoria. The company offers serious work clothes the kind that appeal to loggers, commercial fishermen and other people who work in an industrial environment. The store is filled with canvas jackets, flannel shirts, lined pants and other items that wear like iron.
Family business M&N Workwear has had a Web site for about a decade.
Mona and Nels Christensen own the store, which bears their initials in its name. Their son Neil, who has a degree in computer science, helps run the business and designed the Web site.
He said at first the site was just information online to explain to people about the store.
“A business card type thing,” he said. “Then it grew into what it is now.”
Today M&N’s Web site offers a cyber niche for quality work clothes, offering obscure, hardy brands that aren’t available everywhere. About 5 percent of current sales come from Web customers.
“You have to have something unique on the Internet to get noticed,” he said. “We have lines that are hard to find.”
Movie crews tend to frequent M&N’s when they’re in town, buying gear and clothing. Crews for the History Channel TV show “Ax Men” consulted with M&N while they were filming near Astoria. Cruise ship staff members are also regular customers during tourist season.
But their mainstay is the blue-collar worker who makes a living in the local area.
As if to illustrate the point, during this interview a woman came into the store with a well-worn jacket that belonged to her husband, a welder. She was looking for a replacement.
“He didn’t want to give it to me,” she said matter-of-factly. The jacket grimy, ripped and well past its prime had the look of a cherished favorite. “But I told him I’d flatten all four of his tires if he didn’t.”
Neil deciphered the worn label, pored over a catalog, and soon found a brand new version of the same garment. But the updated model sported a corduroy collar, something the woman said her husband would have no part of.
“He thinks corduroy is too fancy,” she said.
Neil promised to do some research to see if he could locate the exact jacket she was looking for, sans corduroy. Satisfied, she promised to bring her husband and the old jacket back tomorrow so he could get a new one.
That kind of customer service doesn’t grow on trees, or the Internet for that matter, and it’s part of what makes M&N special. But thanks to the Web, M&N Workwear is accessible to anyone online, any time of day.
Columbia River Coffee Roasters
Tim Hurd and Nancy Montgomery own Astoria-based Columbia River Coffee Roasters, located in the newly restored historic Finnish Meat Market building, also in the city’s Uniontown neighborhood.
The husband and wife team started the business in 1992, and moved the firm last summer from its previous digs near the old Youngs Bay Bridge to its current location. They’ve had a company Web site for about a decade.
“We bought a Web design package at a KMUN auction,” Montgomery said, referring to a fund drive sponsored by Astoria’s community radio station. “It included design, and hosting for six months.”
Coffeehouses, restaurants and stores up and down the coast sell the company’s coffee. Initially, they printed their toll-free telephone number on coffee bags.
That pre-Internet strategy was inspired by customers who regularly sought out their brick and mortar location and otherwise tried to contact them. Developing a Web site made that outreach even easier.
Columbia River Coffee Roaster’s personal approach to business is evident in Montgomery’s warm and welcoming style with customers. Many are regulars she knows by name, and during the interview she leaped up several times to hug people as they walked through the door.
And while wholesale accounts are the company’s bread and butter, Montgomery said CRCR has always had individual customers in mind.
She said staff members prefer to talk to clients by phone so they can offer personalized service. But individual customers often prefer the Web.
“Our Web customers are primarily individuals from elsewhere,” she said. “We also have a handful that get local delivery [of coffee] once a month.”
Internet business has in the past represented about 8 percent of sales.
That percentage could rise soon. CRCR recently revamped its Web site to facilitate immediate payment. The update will likely increase online revenue.
Montgomery said a Web presence is also part of the company’s strategy to make the most of the tourism industry.
“They touch down and experience us through our accounts on the coast,” she said. “Then they seek us out on the Web.”
Montgomery said Long Beach Web design firm Beachdog.com did their site revamp. She considers the expense a long-term investment that will pay off.
“Hosting is cheap,” she said, of the costs firms can expect to incur with a Web site. “Expenses can come in shopping cart and payment software.”
CRCR will continue to sell coffee and mugs (with the company logo) online, which means that not all of their eclectic inventory of coffee and tea paraphernalia will be available via the Web.
And while the site isn’t a big economic driver right now for the business, Montgomery said it’s important to have a Web presence overall; it’s a great tool for bringing businesses and customers together, no matter how far-flung.
“The Internet can match up like with like in the most bizarre ways,” she said.
Chris Bryant: Photography and the Web net more sales
Self-employed professional photographer and artist Chris Bryant of Astoria has been doing business from her Alderbrook studio for the past 15 years. For 14 of those years her photography business, Paradise Productions, has had a Web site.
She said the site seemed like a good idea then, and it’s turned out to be a valuable marketing tool.
“I’d meet people and they’d want to see my work,” she said.
Before the Web site existed, she’d have to make an appointment with potential clients so they could see her work.
“I put examples of my photos online,” she said. “That made it easy for them.”
The site also saves Bryant the time she would have spent on those appointments and allows her to focus more on what she loves: photography, videotaping and creating art.
She said putting her photos on the Web doesn’t encourage theft of her work, principally because the samples are low-resolution, and photos are often too personal to have wide appeal.
“No one is going to steal someone else’s family portrait,” Bryant said.
While most of her clients tend to be from Oregon and Washington, Bryant said the site is equally useful with local clients and ones who live far away.
‘Last week it was a family from Oklahoma,” she said. “They were visiting and wanted their portraits done here.”
Bryant estimated that having a Web site has increased her business volume by 30 to 40 percent. And it continues to help bring business her way even in a down economy: while business was slow in January, it’s picked up since then.
“I do a variety of things and that helps,” she said.
Bryant’s photography expertise encompasses everything from school pictures and family portraits, to scenics. Her commercial clients include hotels and restaurants around the region that have hired her to photograph rooms, lobbies, and food.
She also does paintings in a variety of media, including oils and acrylics. Among her video projects is a film about Astoria that Columbia Memorial Hospital used as a tool to recruit physicians.
Bryant has been a sole proprietor for more than 30 years and still enjoys it. She lived in southern California before moving to Astoria in the 1990s.
“I decided that I’d like to have my own business rather than working for someone else,” she said. “It’s worked since 1975.”
