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Mom and pop on the Web
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May 23, 2000: 12:17 p.m. ET
Sells family of Oklahoma likes the Net so well, they moved biz there from mall
By Staff Writer Steve Bills
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - When you live in Oklahoma, you spend a certain amount of time thinking about tornadoes. As entrepreneurs outside Oklahoma City, Debbie and Stan Sells thought they could help customers contend with the weather by offering emergency supplies. Thus was a business born.
The couple found, however, that their business didn't really start to take off until they got out of the mall and onto the Internet. As a home-based business, making most of its sales at trade shows, Stan Sells said, "the Web site is a way for us to stay in touch."
This kind of use of the Internet is not unusual for small businesses venturing into cyberspace. According to Ray Boggs of International Data Corp., entrepreneurs are using the Web as a supplement to existing physical stores, not to replace other sales channels, but to extend their reach into the new cyber-marketplace.
Small businesses, Boggs said, "are providing on that Web page exactly the kind of product they are providing elsewhere -- and often to the same customer."
Only 27 percent yet have sites
While more than half of small businesses in the United States now use the Internet (most often for e-mail and online research), only 27 percent of those companies have their own Web sites, IDC reported last month. Even fewer are set up to offer direct e-commerce services.
 And apart from the ambitious dot.com startups, which start out with global business in mind and aggressive growth plans, Boggs said, for most small businesses, "the lion's share of their business is conducted locally -- even those who are working online."
One result of the dot.com boom, moreover, has been an explosion of companies offering Web site development services to individuals and small businesses, often for free.
One new entrant, ClickThings, debuted in early May, claiming to be the first site-building site offering "what you see is what you get" features. At a New York City press conference to announce its kickoff, former football star Boomer Esiason was on hand to say he was moving his Web presence to ClickThings from a freestanding set-up as a way to save money.
Esiason said he had spent $20,000-to-$25,000 to build and maintain his site, a cystic fibrosis foundation, using independent Web designers and consultants. "It's been a very arduous thing. It's been a very expensive process," he said, "which is counterproductive to what we wanted to do."
Another recent entrant, OhGolly.com, relaunched an existing business-community site in December, newly focusing on Web site development and offering "coaches" who can help entrepreneurs build sites over the telephone as an alternative to its online site-building service.
"The most powerful service is as a marketing tool," said Frank Kavanaugh, president and chief executive of OhGolly, which focuses primarily on companies with 20 employees or fewer. "E-commerce has not yet realized its potential. It will, but it hasn't yet."
Free services, flanked by 'up-sells'
Both these companies -- like many of the competitors in the site-building niche -- offer their basic service for free, enabling a customer to put up a simple site at no charge. Later on, as the user's needs grow -- for more pages on the site, or an online shopping cart, or more sophisticated services -- various "up-sells" are available.
 The Sells family ended up on the Web by a wandering path: They started their business as a booth in a shopping mall, but that had drawbacks. It required Debbie Sells to spend much of her time staffing the booth, it kept her away from her kids, and the overhead was pretty high for a fledgling business with a specialized appeal.
So they tried a different tack: "We started in the mall, but we're no longer in the mall. We're doing trade shows," Stan Sells said. They travel to the county fairs that take place in Oklahoma in the spring, they go to hunting and camping shows, and they offer demonstrations at the base exchange at Tinker Air Force Base, near their Del City, Okla., home.
But there was a problem in connecting to their customers: "Our products are so unique that they need to be able to put their hands on it and see how to use it," said Debbie Sells, president of the company called Emergency Preparedness and Camping Equipment of Oklahoma, or EPACE. Added Stan Sells: "If you put it on a shelf, it doesn't sell very well."
People-oriented style
The direct-selling approach suits the people-oriented style of the business owners, and it enables them to educate their customers about products such as the Pyromid camp stove or the AquaRain water filtration system. "We build relationships with people. They keep coming back, they tell their friends," said Stan Sells.
The Web site provides the counterpart to the face-to-face style, by allowing space to show the benefits of products, even providing a place for customer feedback.
The Sells found their way online through an existing relationship, getting their first free Web site from the company that also sold them office supplies.
The site-building service "is part of relationship-building. The more customers rely on you for, the stronger the relationship," said Susan Nawrocki, divisional vice president of marketing at New England Business Service (NEB: Research, Estimates), which has grown from a regional printer of business forms to a half-billion-dollar direct marketer of business supplies.
 "Obviously, we do have ulterior motives. If we can provide them this service, then we can sell them additional products," such as new business cards or stationery with the Web address, Nawrocki said. NEBS outsourced the site building to another specialist, WebNow, and in effect introduced the Sells to their partner.
"WebNow was very helpful, very friendly, very professional," Stan Sells said, in contrast to some other site-builders he found to be lacking in service. "It's very easy, compared to others we saw."
"Our customers really like the availability of being on the Internet," Debbie Sells added. "It's open 24 hours."
The site uses modular components provided by the site-building service, and it has a somewhat rough-hewn feel, which seems to fit with the down-home style of its operators. While the family has moved up to more advanced services, such as the online shopping cart, they still pay less than $30 a month for their site.
The Web site enables the couple to have the kind of business, and the kind of lives, they want. "We want it to be fun. We want it to be a company that is very respectable," Stan Sells said. "But we're not out there just to sell. We want to make it a long adventure. We want to build up relationships as we go along." 
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