EBizInsider

The ClothingWarehouse.com was one of the first couple of hundred “Y Stores” built with the Yahoo! platform. These days the site has grown to thousands of products and a staggering 95,000 items. They sell clothing to men, women and children.

The men’s clothing runs from tees and tank tops to polo shirts to dress shirts, shorts and sweats. Women’s clothing includes tees, tank tops, polo shirts, dress shirts and more. There are also lots of accessories including bags, totes, duffels, headwear, caps, visors, towels, aprons, robes, bathrobes and blankets. The ClothingWarehouse.com does special orders for corporations with specific designs; it’s a diverse product offering. Currently, the ClothingWarehouse.com employs 12 people on a full-time basis.

Owner Dan Clark knew there was something to this Internet sales idea, but he was having trouble putting the pieces together. “I worked with several of the other store designers,” says Dan, “but the other developers couldn’t deliver what we needed.” What the ClothingWarehouse.com needed was more automation and a more professional look. “We were good at getting indexed on the major search engines, but basically we were selling from an empty, bad-looking store.”

That changed with the Solid Cactus redesign. The new store came online in June of ’06 and the impact was immediate. “Solid Cactus gave us a new logo,” says Dan. “Then they redesigned our store and gave us a new look.” Sales increased by 300% that first year and have kept expanding at that rate ever since. “They gave us the automation we needed and it showed up right away. People stopped abandoning their shopping carts and that added a huge spike to our sales.”

Since then the ClothingWarehouse.com has utilized more and more Solid Cactus features in its e-commerce design. “They handle a wider and wider range of our business,” says Dan. Currently Solid Cactus manages Search Engine Marketing for the ClothingWarehouse.com. In addition, the company hired Solid Cactus to manage its Affiliate Program; they’ve implemented the Solid Cactus Wholesale Log-in and have used the Call Center services as well. “It’s all in pursuit of one thing: keeping our store current.”

It’s a constant question for e-commerce owners who undertake design changes and other improvements to their sites: is it an expense or an investment? It’s not a question to Dan Clark or the ClothingWarehouse.com. He says the changes have been money well-spent on the future of his company. “The key in any business is to continually change, update and improve the shopping experience for your customers,” says Dan. “This is the best return you could get. I know this sounds like I’m a Solid Cactus insider, but I really can’t spend enough money with you folks. Every change you have made to the ClothingWarehouse.com has made an immediate and measurable change to our bottom line. Frankly, I’m just waiting to see what other new applications Solid Cactus develops to help my business. So far, every single thing has worked.”

Going forward, Dan Clark is continuing to manage the astonishing growth of the ClothingWarehouse.com. The company has increased its sales by an average of 300-400% per year since 2005. This may look like another “Internet success story,” but don’t be fooled. The ClothingWarehouse.com struggled for 5 years to stay alive. It makes Dan Clark laugh looking back on those uncertain days. “If we had a motto,” says Dan, “it should read never give up. I’m serious! We probably should have given up a dozen times along the way. But we didn’t. What we did was stay alive long enough to find Solid Cactus. That was the difference for us.”

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