This post is long, but I beg your indulgence.
As many THR and TFL members know, I went far out on a limb last year to start what I still believe can be a profitable website, one that gives stores more presence and "findability" than any other.
Originally I had offered a six-month free trial subscription. Well, things usually take longer than anticipated, and this site was no different. I didn't start calling shops to pay until April. I even have some shops that have been on the site for free for over a year.
My fault, not theirs, at least in most cases.
Last summer I told the shop owners I'd contacted that the site would be bringing in 100,000 or more visitors by February or March of this year. That wasn't just a seat-of-my-pants guess; it was based on prior experience with other sites.
I hit that target in March, and traffic continues to grow. I'm now telling shop owners that traffic will be at least 200,000 per month by early next year, and I'm not blowing sunshine up their butts. The traffic will be that, or more.
I also told them that they would receive new customers from the site. I made a point of stressing that I wasn't going to double their sales, just that I would be able to bring in enough new customers to make the $10 a month I charge worth the cost in the short term, and even more worthy long term, as a new customer is solid gold.
I've done that, too, for most of the shops on my site.
Here's the problem, though: I have many, many small shops run by one or two people who've said that they absolutely know they've gotten new customers from the site. Shops in Billings Montana, Tupelo Mississippi, Tucson Arizona, San Bernadino California, and other lesser markets. To say that I'm pleased with the response these stores are getting is an understatement; they're happy, which means that I'm 110% happy.
It's when I call the medium to large shops on my site that renewing for $100 a year becomes an issue. I never, ever expected that. But the owners are so far removed from the day-to-day retail operations, and there's so many salespeople, that I suspect that nobody knows where the new customers are coming from.
I can use simple math to try to explain: Butt's Gun Sales in Billings has had 1,647 people view their (Jack's) page on my site since April 1st. Jack has also told me that he's gotten twenty new customers from my site, and that renewing for $100 was a no-brainer. He doesn't have a website, and said that Gunshopfinder.com was the perfect internet outlet for him.
Larry, the owner of Pontotoc American Arms outside Tupelo Mississippi, has had just 821 people view his page, yet he told me that he's also gotten new customers. And he's sending a check for the one-year subscription renewal.
Meanwhile, I have guys like the owner of a shop in AZ. He's had 6,888 people view his page on my site since April 1st. And his store has a much better inventory of guns and accessories than Butt's or Pontotoc.
The laws of probability would dictate that the AZ shop is getting more new customers from my site than either Butt's or Pontotoc. Anything else flies in the face of logic.
Yet I cannot convince guys like the owner of the AZ shop that it's worth his while to pay $10 a month ($60 for six months, or $100 a year) to help guide those new customers in.
And I'm getting similar flak from other large gun shops. One in Pittsburgh has been putting me through the "committee wringer." I've been calling them since April, and the five people in charge of advertising still haven't decided whether to plunk down $100 for a year of advertisng that I know with 100% certainty has brought them new customers.
A shop owner in Las Vegas is having his kid field his calls and tell me he's not in the store, even though I can hear his voice in the background. This even though he's gotten 5,115 people viewing his page and, trust me, he's gotten some new customers. If a shop is having money problems, I understand. There's nothing new in that. How about paying me in the fall, when business picks up, rather than try to stiff me?
Meanwhile, I've got a guy like Vaughn Beals who operates a very small retail gun store in Jersey Shore, PA. His retail store is only open a few evenings a week. The rest of the time he spends creating 1,000-yard precision rifles. And he renewed immediately. He's gotten calls from customers who'd never heard of him before, and got sales.
And then there's the owner of another shop in the East. His name is Mark. I called him back in March, and he told me to send an invoice for a full year. I called a month later and he said he'd lost it. I mailed another. Called a month later, and he said he'd forward it to his accountant. Called a month later, and he told me to fax a copy and he'd write a personal check. I still haven't seen payment. I'm going to have to take him off the site.
Here's yet another example. I called the owner of a shop in South Carolina. Amazingly enough, he said he was about to call me because they had changed their hours. They're no longer open on Wednesdays. And some guy drove a gazillion miles to visit the store on a Wednesday, only to find them closed. The guy left a printout of the shop's page from my site, along with a scathing note on the back.
Naturally, I changed the shop's hours on the site immediately (which the owner can do with his own username and password from any computer in the world). I then asked him about renewing. He said that he hadn't seen anybody come into his shop and mention my site. I told him he just did, but he didn't take the site seriously enough to update his hours. And that, if he got one note from a ticked-off customer, he's probably seen many more customers from my site who haven't told him where they found him.
What is it with these guys? Are the owners of the medium to large-sized shops so flush with cash that they don't care about getting two or five or ten new repeat customers?
If so, then they aren't like my friend who owns a pretty upscale shop here in Milwaukee. If he has a new customer, he'll keep the store open two hours after closing time if it means that he can make a sale.
My previous bleats on this subject on this forum have resulted in pretty much the same advice: retailers need to be reminded of what they're going to lose, not what they're going to gain.
Well, it's almost impossible to prove to someone like the owners of the shop in AZ what they've lost. All I can do is get another shop in their area, and then let them know how many new customers the new shop has received.
The problem with that is that it takes weeks to get a new shop on the site: everyone from the owner to the janitor has to OK going with the free trial. You'd think I was trying to sell them anthrax.
Meanwhile, I'm losing time getting new shops in cities and states I don't already have.
So, for those of you who either own or manage gun stores, can I ask you for any and all advice on how to get these store owners to pay the $10 a month?
I'm doing everything I set out to do, I've delivered on every promise I made, I've met every target, and I'm bringing these shops new customers.
By the way, this isn't a whine. If gun store owners don't see the value of what my site provides, then I'll work on other sites that sell fuzzy pink bunny slippers, or fresh bloody red roadkill meat.
If I can get ranked #1 on Google for "New York gun shops" or "New York gun stores" out of over 5,000,000 results--and I've been amazingly successful at getting websites ranked highly on search engines for several years--I can just abandon gun store owners and go where there's better money.
Problem is, I love guns and the idea of promoting the gun industry. And I don't even own a pair of fuzzy pink bunny slippers.