BY MIKE HELENTHAL
TILTON — Google the word “greenhouse” and you’ll get a dizzying 23 million hits from Web sites around the world claiming some connection to your search.
So how does a little business based in Vermilion County named International Greenhouse Company get noticed?
“We put an incredible amount of time and effort into it,” owner David George said.
IGC is possibly the biggest area Internet success story, starting as a six-person operation out of a Sidell shed and growing into a national leader in online sales of greenhouse accessories.
“It’s what we do now,” George said, noting some 90 percent of the company’s sales are now taken through the Web site. “It’s become the biggest part of our business.”
The company continues to grow after doubling its sales in 2006-07, and last year moved from a cramped location in Georgetown into the former Gaudio distributorship building in Tilton. It is adding to a 20-person staff.
George said his company had the advantage of getting into online sales early, with his father, David Sr., adding the new feature around 2000 to an already successful business centered around building greenhouses across the country.
“Back then it was still a very small portion of our overall business,” George recalled. “I think he knew.”
The company had the additional benefit of making the move just as food safety and eating healthy were becoming high-profile national issues.
George Jr. saw it as well — an incredible amount of money could be made in cyberspace offering good products and by using the family’s lifelong experience and connections in the industry.
“The potential was just so huge,” he said. “We were somewhat fortunate that there wasn’t a lot of competitors back then sell-ing through the Internet.”
Already a profitable company, David Jr. plunged a “significant” amount of money into upgrading the site and hiring tech-savvy employees to make it run smoothly. Before long they were shipping greenhouse supplies to customers in China.
Taking hits
While IGC considers itself an established industry leader, they say it is no time to scrimp on the technology side of the business.
The company still builds greenhouses and even does scant walk-up business, but the Web site is the “baby” that gets the most attention and care.
“The overall look and feel is really crucial,” he said. “A lot of companies use a Web site just to provide information. You have to have all the features people expect, but there’s a big difference between information and information that is content-rich. Anybody can just launch a Web site.”
George said the company’s Web site gets “tens of thousands” of hits every month, but that doesn’t happen accidentally. Staff continually updates information and provides stellar customer service, and the company continues to make investments in not only equipment, but techniques to keep the IGC name relevant online.
“These things aren’t as easy to do as you would think,” he said. “The burdens of (online) entry are very low. We literally have competitors who may be working out of the house.”
First contact
Other local companies have found ways to profit from the Internet as well.
Bob Smith of Bill Smith Auto Parts said he couldn’t compete in the used parts business without having a Web site devoted to sales. The site is linked through a national parts-selling site.
“It gives us a national scale that we couldn’t get otherwise,” he said. “A lot of shops and individuals go right there and make their order. We do a pretty good eBay-type business as well.”
Smith said Internet sales in just the four years since he adopted the technology had grown to about a quarter of his total sales, even outstripping sales on the company’s longer-established 800-number. And he still uses the http://www.billsmithauto.com site to show used cars to customers who can’t make it the lot.
“We just shipped a part to Russia earlier today (from an online order),” he said. “I think people have gotten really dependent on the Internet to shop. Many times anymore, it’s their first contact.”
Melissa Gouty, who owns Threads of Time with husband Bill, said the business has benefited greatly from having a Web site — though the initial online store idea they had was quickly scrapped.
“We thought it would be a good avenue to increase our sales,” she said. “But we couldn’t make enough sales. There’s just so much competition.”
And not just for sales. Gouty, as well as other small business owners said a good part of getting noticed online these days includes paying for advertising for search-engine placement.
“We couldn’t afford the advertising to be the top dog,” she said. “And the sales just weren’t justifying it.”
Instead, the Goutys moved in a new direction, expanding services in their own quilting store to include week-long, group-quilting getaways inside the store’s renovated retreat rooms, and using the Internet to form their own “quilting community” of 3,000.
“It’s become one of our best marketing tools,” she said. “We send things out on a weekly basis.”
And while the Goutys don’t plan to add “international” to the store name anytime soon, they have developed a regional following of quilt makers who have found it online. She said she just booked a group from Neoga who had found information on the store’s quilting retreats at the computer.
“They got on and looked at the Web site and took the virtual tour,” she said. “It lets us show people what we have and whether it’s worth coming to.”
