I spoke to Jaclyn Kim co-owner at PJEE to see how wholesale handbag sales were faring with the new website launch. Moreover, found out what Pjee is doing to buck the trend and grow sales in a difficult economic climate:

Jaclyn:

Why we upgraded our website?

Pjee have been in business since 1993, PJEE had always been operating through a basic template website that showed our vast array of Wholesale handbags to our customers. But this catalog with unimpressive product pictures did not do our wholesale handbags and purses justice and without a shopping cart customers had to wait impatiently for PJEE’s store to open to place their wholesale handbag orders.  This created bottle necks and made shipping a stressful process. Lots of buyers prefer to buy after hours at their leisure in the evening.

What we did differently compared to our last website?

We used a Professional Agency to design our website from scratch. We kept everything simple and wanted to avoid clutter so that buyers could easily navigate through the site so to focus on the wholesale handbags.

How we promoted our website?

We turned to major online wholesale directories to target wholesale handbag and accessory buyers only.

Who we used?

http://www.TopTenWholesale and http://www.WholesaleU.com

Successes to date in terms of traffic/buyers and sales through the shopping cart?

Visitors to our website  since we started in 1993 has gone from a few dozen unfocused inquiries who sent emails/ made the odd call to today where we have thousands of visitors daily.  The banners and listings really do work.  And to see actual wholesale handbag sales/ orders in the online shopping cart before we open the store is a great feeling, especially in this marketplace!

Thanks Jaclyn

Dan: “At almost every trade show, customers ask us in a surprised tone, “A Western business in Pennsylvania??”. “We’re in WESTERN Pennsylvania”, will be the usual reply from CEO of Western Express,  Dan Mottsman.  This always elicits a chuckle. Most of our potential customers expect that we would operate out of Texas, Colorado, or some other western state.

Since its founding in the late 1970′s by Richard and Evelen Mottsman, Western Express www.wexpress.com has been a family owned and operated wholesale business.   Originally started as a general wholesale business under another name, the business evolved to market mainly country western products, during the “Urban Cowboy” craze of the early 1980’s. Richard and Evelyn’s children Dan Mottsman and Paula Brant (current president) have worked in the business for the past few decades.  In recent years Dan and Paula have taken over operations.

Western Express wholesale product lines include cowboy hats and hat accessories, belt buckles, western shirts, gun holsters, leather goods, and western jewelry, western themed poly-resin products, and t-shirts and sweatshirts.

Country Western Products have maintained their popularity throughout the years, and in fact, seem to be relatively recession proof. In fact, country western products often do better during tough economic and political times. Country Western Products became very popular during the Iran Hostage Crisis from around 1979 through 1981, with the release of the movie “Urban Cowboy”. There was also a surge in country western products during the recession in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, with the popularity of Garth Brooks and other country western singers.

The good thing about our wholesale business is the lack of extreme boom and bust cycles. We strive to find consistent good sellers, and to develop these products or product lines.  This methodology helps to cushion us from the drastic economic fluctuations experienced by many businesses that we come in contact with – especially at the ASD-AMD market.

Although our customers are not limited to western stores, western stores are our core business. We try to market products that have staying power with these clients. That being said, our products are very popular with such non Western business such as gift stores, party planners, truck stops, and flea market vendors.

Our success is due in large part to being responsive to the needs and desires of our CURRENT resellers. Our resellers are often the ones that turn us onto new trends in the business.

Bringing in new customers is secondary to gaining the satisfaction of our current worldwide customer base.

As for our “secondary” goal of bringing in new customers, marketing through www.toptenwholesale.com has been instrumental in our growth.”

Thanks Dan

For many years we sold porcelain dolls but the market for dolls seemed to decline over the last few years and I knew that we needed to do something to halt the decline. For many years I have decorated my booth in butterflies and have always been complimented on them by my customers. So a few years ago I decided that I would start selling butterflies in my booth and stop selling the dolls. I understood the importance of following color trends in the market place and to give customers numerous options. So working closely with my manufacturer we designed very colorful, glittery butterflies. The butterflies were an instant hit appealing to retailers and wholesalers selling fashion accessories, hair accessories but also florists and gift stores wanted them too. The success with butterflies led me to fairy princess (with wings) dress up costumes and party favors that have been a big hit for Halloween and wedding planners. If I had not listened to my customers and acted on their feedback I probably would not be in business now. I never would have thought a niche focus on wings could be so profitable!

Thanks Wendy!

I was also intrigued with the shopping section – Bing.com persuaded me to set up an account to get cash back on my purchases.  It seems to work very well I have set up my account (with ease) and now just have to buy some thing.   Search your product, hit the “Bing Cash Back Button”  and in an instant  Price, Shipping and Cash Back %’s  “pop up” to tempt me to empty my wallet!

Microsoft have allocated $100 million in advertising bing.com I guess I should not be surprised that their alexa ranking was at 144 today and climbing.

SO what can we take from this as we navigate around our B2B websites?  Is cash back a viable option on a B2B website like www.toptenwholesale.com to persuade retailers to part with their money?  What else can we do to help retailers get quick price comparisons on wholesale products?

In our quest to help our retailer/ resellers navigate towards great wholesale deals we have relaunched www.offpricenetwork.com and www.wholesaleU.com directories please check them out your feed back is welcome!

Daniel.

Our wholesale industry experience and knowledge (8 years for me alone) allows us to build the right navigational/ search tools for buyers to shop quickly and easily by category, keyword or company and give wholesalers the opportunity to promote themselves to a growing number of retail buyers who will now purchase far more products online through out the year than ever before and that trend will continue for many more years to come.  Trade shows are still important to buyers but the ease, convenience and cost effectiveness of buying online means vertical search websites like ours are going to grow even more popular as a means to do business.